The Stories Never Really End
by ksmurf
Summary: For every beginning of a, there is a middle and an end. Or is there? The Universe of the Four Gods continues its tale with new faces as they and the Seven Stars of Suzaku fight against the oncoming darkness.
1. Jin Zhu Zhe Chi, Jin Mo Zhe Hei

A/N: Hello! Wow. It's been a while since I've posted anything, and I'm branching out into a new area. Just recently I've gotten hooked on Fushigi Yugi and I've had an idea for this for a while, but I didn't know which anime series to put it with. So I chose (obviously), Fushigi Yugi. Warning: the first part of this story might not seem as if it relates to FY, but it will all become clear when and if I post the second part. Let me know what you think. 

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or ideas from Fushigi Yugi, and I also don't claim Care Bears, Captain Planet, Nightmare of Elm Street, Friday the 13th, the Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Discworld, Star Wars, Tylenol, Chicago, McDonalds or AIM. (You'll probably understand by the time you're done reading this). 

Claimer: Alexis, Emily, Brian, their mom, the Andersons (all five of them), the portal system, Traveling, the Academy, the Creator, and Numbers 1, 2 and 3 are mine. Not that you would try to plagorise them or anything, but just checking.

Prologue: Where is the end?

For every beginning, there is a middle and an end. Or is there? All stories come to a final conclusion at the end of their tale, with the exception of Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday 13th and the Matrix Revolutions. Cinderella married Prince Charming, the Titanic did indeed sink, Jackie Chan with his non-Asian partner kicked some serious ass, and the Care Bears teamed up with Captain Planet and saved the whales. (Just kidding). But suppose the stories didn't end there, and they went on. On past the epilogues, OVAs, and in Freddy/Jason/possibly Neo's cases, on past the never ending sequels. What we know as the end, wouldn't be the end, but just a continuation of the middle. "The End" is just a point where we fall out of knowledge of what is going on (either that or the director lost his funding for his movie). So, what if the stories didn't end? I'm going to tell you, for a fact, that they don't.

Books? Movies? Entertainment is nothing more than a scam set up by the government to keep the truth from getting out to the population. Except reality television. It got where it is by it's own stupid little self. It didn't need the government's help to become that dumb. What's the truth? The truth is that movies and books are all based on the real lives of real people in other worlds. Yes, there is a world that revolves around the lives of two blonde sixteen-year-old twins, where cute boys, cute dogs, and weird villains run wild. It's scary. I've been there. But that is just one of many parallel universes that exists, and we don't even know they're there. But the Travelers and the Authors know. It's their job to know what goes on in the other worlds. 

We all know what an author and a traveler are, they're people that write stories and travel, respectively, right? WRONG! That's just what the government wants you to believe. In secret, they're part of a religious cult that is devoted to putting dumb-asses in government positions to see what will happen when that government goes to war with everyone else. No, just kidding. A Traveler can be 1. one who travels, 2. one who goes to foreign countries to take pictures and ask in a loud voice "Does anyone know English?" or 3. someone who has been trained in the art of Traveling, and has an operating license to pass from world to world.  For our purposes, we're going to pick definition number three. 

IN THE DAWN OF TIME, THERE WAS DARKNESS, BUT THEN THERE WAS LIGHT…and that was because the Creator forgot to change the light bulb so she used a flashlight. (Yes, the Creator was female.) The Creator made thousands of worlds, each with it's own environment, people and ways of life. However, this took up too much space to put them into one universe, so she made each one of them into a parallel universe. Originally, there were passages between the parallel universes, so all one had to do was imagine the world they wanted to travel to, and they would be able to go there. There were, however, some bullies who wanted to take control of the weaker, less protected universes. When these bullies collaborate, and made plans to begin to take control of all the universes, the Time of Infinite Darkness (or the Dark Era) commenced.

During the Dark Era, there was much chaos as the powers of the weaker worlds were overthrown. Eventually, the Creator got fed up with all the chaos (and she ran out of Tylenol for the headaches it was causing her). So she closed the passages between the worlds forever. Then, for each world, she took all the memories of the other worlds, put them into a gem and hid the gem somewhere within each world.  Since she couldn't fully erase the memories, and so history didn't repeat itself, she came up with a guardian universe. This guardian universe consisted of a single world called the Earth. (She put in a lot of space to keep the government occupied so they wouldn't focus on parallel worlds so much. Just for kicks, she put a little sign at the end that said: Welcome to the end of the universe, may I take your order? Would you like to try our big mac?)

On Earth, there were a select group of people called the Authors. These people were able to receive and decipher signals, messages and images from the other worlds and transferred these to written logs, they called Books. Books were the written records of important events that were happening in the other universes. Everyone read the books and said, "Wow, that was a ripping yarn. Pity that the good guys had to die like that" while the Authors alone know of the truth, that the books were really biographies of other people, like themselves. This enabled the Authors to keep tabs on any suspicious activities that might occur, so they could perform the rite of the Telephone and call the Creator to make everything right again.

Each Author was assigned to one world to monitor. In time, five Authors received similar signals that instructed them on how to reopen the passages between the worlds again. These five Authors opened passages between Earth and their respective worlds, but monitored the traffic between the worlds heavily. They became the first Travelers since the Dark Era. The worlds they Traveled to, remained in the dark as to the fact that the passages had reopened. At the end of their lives, each Traveler selected a student and passed on the secrets of Traveling into their particular worlds to this student, or apprentice. As time went on, more Authors became Travelers as they opened the gates to other worlds. 

Soon, there were many Travelers, so it was decided by the current Travelers of the five worlds that had originally reopened the passages, to start a school to create a school to find prospective apprentices. This became the Academy of the Traveling Arts.

Students attend the school, much like a boarding school. They learn how to master a form of self-defense, whether it be with a weapon or martial arts, to protect themselves when they Travel. At the end of the ten year education, they take a test, and if they pass, they are eligible to become an Apprentice (assuming a current Traveler selects them). However, the stress of learning self-defense, the weight of the regular class room lessons and the rigorous exams, causes many students to drop out. If this is the case, the student's memories of attending the school are replaced with memories of attending a regular school and they become a normal child again, going to the movies to watch movies, oblivious to the truth.

Travelers monitor the different worlds, in hope  (and if fear) that someone is going to find the gems with all the memories and attempt to create another Dark Era. If the Travelers cannot summon the Telephone in time, the Creator can do nothing until they do. There are only a few people in the government who know about the different worlds. They're all too busy with wars and space travel. They haven't found the sign yet. Movies and books don't end because that's the end of the story. They end because the Travelers don't want people to read the books or see the movies and get the idea that "Oh, wouldn't it be cool to travel to another world through a book or a movie screen?" 

Endings don't exist. The stories continue on, they're still there. So what if Tamahome and Miaka are finally together, living happily? Some other person is going to come up with the completely original idea that if they can separate those two, they can control that universe. Just because Neo saved the world, doesn't mean that he isn't coming back (as that psychic lady proclaimed). The fact that Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart did double act isn't any sign that they're going to be successful little actresses. Who knows, they might commit a few more murders and end up as the first women hung somewhere else. And who's to say that Sauron doesn't have another ring hidden somewhere that's going to come back and haunt the grandchildren of the Fellowship? (Except for Boromir, he's dead and Frodo, he's gone with the elves, and Gandalf, he was a wizard, so he couldn't have any children, Okay: come back and haunt another set of hobbits, elves, men and dwarves ready for an adventure.)

This is not a story about how love transcended time and space. This is also not a story about a girl that found a way to travel back in time with a dried water source. This is definitely not a story about someone who tries to push a priestess out of their old position just to win a guy. You will also find that this isn't a story about a person who joins a four-guy team to beat demons. One this story is not is a story about someone who manages to find a weird family that has animal problems either. This is a story about what happens when the camera stops rolling and when there are no more pages left to turn. 

Part 1: Jin Zhu Zhe Chi, Jin Mo Zhe Hei: Near Vermilion, One gets stained red; near ink, one gets stained black

Emily slowly looked at her surroundings from the bench on which she was sitting. 'Tall city buildings, with a green bench and crows on the ground…' she narrowed her dark eyes as she stared at the sky before adding nastily, 'So where's Neo?'

"I bet you're wondering why you're here." Emily turned to face the little old woman with the huge bag and stared at her. 'Of course, she'd be here too.' Tilting her head, she coldly replied, "No. I'm not."

"I knew you were going to say that." She smiled, "So if you know why you're here, why don't you leave? You are free to go at any time."

"I don't recall ever saying that my purpose was finished. I told you that I knew why I was here. You're here to tell me about some misfortune that is bound to occur in your world sooner or later unless my brother and I help you. Am I correct?" Then she turned her head away. "Besides. This isn't the real Matrix world. It's a dream and I can't leave any more than you can reprogram yourself."

Sighing, the oracle leaned back. "You're right about that kiddo. The world, the Matrix and the real world are soon going to be out of balance again."

"What do you mean out of balance?" Emily asked sharply. "I thought Neo made that agreement with the sentinels and the Matrix was rebooted. The smith agent is no longer a threat and neither is the creator of the matrix."

"Whether you want to hear it or not, there is something that will come and it will create another war in our world."

Closing her eyes, Emily sighed out of exasperation. "Let me guess. You can't tell me what this something is or when it's going to come and cause trouble because that would be revealing too much of the future, or you don't really know."

"Right again kid. I can't tell you anything else, because I honestly don't know what's going to happen. But before you go, I have a question for you."

Emily glared at her. "Go on. Ask me how I knew what you were going to say that even though I don't have any particular powers and I'm not an oracle program."

"Except I know the answer to that already."

Astonished Emily's head snapped to face her.  "Wait. You aren't supposed to know about different worlds, even if you are an oracle. How did you know that?"

"Well, I didn't in fact know the answer, but now you've told me you've been contacted by different worlds."

"You're not freaking out, knowing there are different worlds? And you're not supposed to know either!"

Smiling at Emily the oracle replied, "Is it so strange to believe, that there are different worlds? Where do all the stories come from?" She paused at Emily's emotionless face. "The Creator may have erased all the memories from the humans, but I don't get rebooted in the Matrix, so I remember everything.

"Time was when there would be many different type s of strange people visiting in the Matrix. The agents had a difficult time keeping track of all of them." She stopped smiling for a moment and turned to face Emily, who had started to walk away. "You know what you have to do, don't you?"

"No. As a matter of fact I don't."

"There's no need to get irritated because you know you have a difficult task in front of you."

Emily turned to face the aging woman seated on the bench and coldly replied. "What are you talking about? You're just a dream. This isn't really even the real matrix world. It's just my mind playing tricks on me. I should ignore what you're saying because it's pointless to try to take anything you say seriously."

The oracle shrugged. "Believe what you want to believe. You're the only person who can decide things for yourself. Just trust yourself and do the right thing."

"Fine." Emily looked to the sky and said, "I want to wake up now, if you wouldn't mind." The image faded away and Emily was in the dark once again. 

"Hey Emi? You awake?" a whisper came across the room and Emily cracked open her eyes and turned to face the other bed. 

"What is it Brian? Why are you up so early?" Groggily, she stepped out of bed, preparing for school that day.

"Oh, you've got exams today and that's exciting, isn't it? And did you have another one of the dreams? I did. It was from the oracle from the matrix? The really old chick-lady with the weird-ass questions and fortune-cookie phrases?"

"Yes." Emily simply replied as she moved to her bureau to get her hairbrush. 

Brian sat up in bed and starting firing back questions. "Yes? Yes as in: yes it's exciting that I have my exams today? Or 'yes' as in: yes I had another one of those dreams prophesizing the trouble that might not even come? Or 'yes' I know you had one of those dreams too or Yes as in—"

"Do you ever shut up?" Emily faced her brother and gave him a blank stare.

Her brother beamed at her and shook his head. "Nope! Since you never seem to talk, it's my job to talk twice as much to make up for it!" Then his smile faded a little. "But in all seriousness, did you have the dream with the oracle?"

"I might have."

"That means yes, doesn't it?"

"If you put it that way, yes."

Brian crossed his arms and scowled at her back. "You know Emi, you're never going to get any friends at this rate. You're so cold all the time. It's a wonder that mom and dad haven't given up trying to talk to you."

She stopped brushing her hair and looked back at him. "That's the way I am. It's another fact of life. You smile constantly, I never smile. You speak twice as much and twice as fast as a normal person, while I don't speak to anyone unless it's absolutely necessary. That is how it is." Then she continued brushing her hair.

"So what did the oracle tell you?" He asked. "She told me that something was upsetting the balance in both the matrix and the matrix world." Counting on his fingers he continued, "So first it was the grim reaper dude from Discworld that told us the auditors were getting restless, and then it was Dumbledore from the Wizarding world who told us that the magic was acting strangely. Then there was also Obi-Wan's ghost that said there was something disturbing the natural flow of the force." Looking up he concluded. "That makes four of the five worlds with trouble in the future, as far as we know."

"You forgot the one from the elf man, Legolas. He proclaimed there was a dark force stirring in the east."

"Thank you Miss Cleo."

"Not a problem."

"KIDS! EMILY YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR EXAMS! BRIAN STOP DISTRACTING HER!"

"RIGHT MOM! I'LL STOP DISTRACTING HER ONCE YOU STOP YELLING AT US THIS EARLY IN THE MORNING!"

"GET YOURSELF DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!"

"OKAY!" Brian looked apologetically at Emily. "Emi, can you help me get downstairs again? The ramp's got a whole bunch of dad's bowling stuff on it. He forgot to put it away."

"Alright. Just a moment." She walked into the bathroom and put on her school uniform. "Fine." She lifted her twin up and proceeded to carry him downstairs.

Embarrassed, as always, Brian rubbed the back of his head, "This is so embarrassing. I really should find some way to get around on my own, especially since wheelchairs are practically unheard of now."

"Why don't you spend some of your time researching ways to help yourself instead of hacking into illegeal chat rooms?"

"Aww, you're no fun Emi. Besides, hacking is a lot more fun than doing 'research'." He laughed. "You could always help."

"IF YOU WOULD JUST LET ME OR YOUR FATHER TAKE YOU TO THE MEDICAL CLINIC AND GET YOUR NERVES REARRANGED AND PUT SOME PLASTIC SURGERY TO USE, THEN YOU WOULDN'T COMPLAIN!"

Both twins winced at the sound of their mother's loud voice. Brian's smile disappeared. "Because I don't want that to happen to me. Better be a cripple than let the Nazi doctors experiment on me. I don't care if it makes me helpless." He looked at Emily who nodded. She understood.

"WELL EMILY? ARE YOU JUST GOING TO STAND THERE, OR ARE YOU GOING TO BRING YOUR BROTHER TO HIS WHEELCHAIR OR NOT? YOU STILL HAVE EXAMS TODAY, YOU KNOW!" Their mother stood at the stove frying some eggs as Emily walked in with Brian on her back. 

"EMILY? WHY HAVEN'T YOU LEFT YET FOR YOUR EXAMS? YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE AND THEN WE'LL HAVE ANOTHER WORTHLESS BRAT HANGING AROUND THE HOUSE!"

Brian frowned. "Mom. You know that wasn't my fault. Don't take your disappointment for me out on Emi. She's doing well. She'll be fine in exams today."

"HOW CAN YOU BE SO SURE? WE WERE CERTAIN THAT YOU'D GET THE MASTERY OF THE MIDDLE EARTH, BUT THEN YOU HAD TO GO AND SHOW OFF JUST TO PROVE THAT YOU'RE BETTER THAN SOMEONE OLDER THAN YOU! SO YOU BE QUIET! AND STOP CALLING YOUR SISTER BY THAT STUPID CHILDISH NICKNAME!" 

He moved his hands away from his ears. "Mom, you really should have your ears checked or something because you don't need to yell at us to get us to hear you. It's really annoying." Brian nodded to Emily, signaling that it was safe to remove her hands from her ears as well. "Emi, you should get going. Good luck."

Emily nodded her thanks. 'Thank you brother for your support. I appreciate it.' Then she calmly walked out of the house, heading for the school. 'Mother needs psychological assistance, soon.'

Brian watched as his sister walked outside, to her exams. 'Good luck, you're going to need it.' Then he turned to his mom. "Can you tell dad to move his junk somewhere else? So I can actually use the ramp?"

"UNGRATEFUL CHILD! YOU CAN MOVE THE JUNK YOURSELF!" Rolling his eyes, Brian moved his wheelchair toward the ramp and proceeded to wheel himself up back to his room. 'Now let's do some hacking. With any luck I can get to talk to Emily before the exams begin.'

He sat down at his computer console and started AIM. Emily wasn't on yet. 'Oh well, I guess I can see what's happening with my buddies on the NMN.' Logging on as **BRI5t4r1**, he saw that his friends **hkrxtreme712** and **dudetinageturtlz4kul** were on. They had both been friends at the Academy, but now they attended regular school, but they had managed to escape the mind-erasing because they were able to erase the fact that they had ever attended the Academy by hacking into the system, so the teachers had no proof to back up their erasing their memories.

**hkrxtreme712:** hey, bri. ull nva guess wats goin round da net 2day

**BRI5t4r:** really? try me

**hkrxtreme712:** well, okay, its not going round the net. but it's something that mite intrest u

**BRI5t4r:** okay, what is it already?

**hkrxtreme712:** run a search on "mastery" "anderson" and "bio" see what you get

**BRI5t4r: **okay…okay…fine. just a sec…

Brian obediently went to the Find-a-lot search engine and typed in "mastery+Anderson+bio". Results started popping up like daisy's popping out of the snow. Then he saw something that caught his eye. 

**BRI5t4r:** shitshitshit. Not good

**hkrxtreme712:** u can sa dat again man

**BRI5t4r:** but I thought there was only two of them in the family with the masters not four

**BRI5t4r:** so gatz and black are in on this too

**hkrxtreme712:** if tiff gets mstr then der gonna be prblms 

* * * * *

As the school approached, looming over her head, Emily sighed. 'In a few hours I should be the only eligible candidate for the matrix-world mastery. Then I don't have to listen to these stupid authorities any longer.' Walking over to the fence, she pressed the call button and proceeded to punch in her student code.

A few seconds later, the digitalized voice answered. "Welcome, Emily Miller to the Academy of Traveling Arts. Please, proceed through the gates now. We wish you luck on your exams today. Enjoy your day at the Academy!" The gates swung open and she passed through them, listening to the digital voice as it said 'goodbye' several different ways. 

'I will destroy that machine one day and replace it with something more worthwhile to listen to.' She looked around at the younger students gathering in the courtyard. There were so many of them. 'It's a pity that ninty-five percent of them will not even make it through the ten year education. They'll have their memories erased, and then they become puppets of the government, just like everyone else.'

"Emily!" She turned to see a little boy running toward her. It was Alexis, the orphan who had managed to get accepted to the Academy. Normally, Emily hated socializing and associating with anyone other than Brian, but she felt that Alexis was different. He was very similar to Brian. First in his class and pushed several years ahead of his age. He was very chipper, just like Brian. So even though Brian was no longer allowed on the school grounds, Emily found someone that didn't annoy her to the end of the world, so she could keep her sanity.

"Emily! You're taking you're exams today, right?" She nodded in reply. Alexis had tan hair and light green eyes, very different than most of the dark-haired students who attended the Academy. "I heard that it's up to you and Tiffany to find out who gets the mastery for the matrix!" He jumped up and down. "I'd love it if you got the matrix one, even if you didn't specialize in gun execution."

She nearly had to smile, but settled for nodding and giving him a verbal reply. "Thank you. I would like that very much as well." Emily started walking to the school. "Alexis, would you like to speak with my brother? I am about to contact him with AIM."

"Wow? Really? AIM? That's so old though. How did you manage to get a system?" Alexis followed her, jumping up and down. "I didn't think that the computer systems could handle it? And why don't you just use a holophone like everyone else?"

"Brian managed to acquire the software through the NMN. Then he designed a program that he put on my IndividiCom. Sometimes it's easier to hide from the teachers and it provides entertainment during the monotony of Traveling History classes." She took out her student card as they approached the janitor's closet. 

"Emi, you really need to get a new locker. Everyone else has a nice locker, except you." Alexis looked worriedly at the door as Emily slid the card through the slot and opened the door. "I mean, you're just like everyone else. Except you've got pretty white hair, and dark purple eyes. But they shouldn't make you have a locker in the janitor's closet because of that. I have weird hair and eyes and they don't make me do that sort of thing!"

"But you board at the school. I do not." She reached up on one of the shelves and pulled down her laptop and plugged it into the wall, where the Internet jack was. Logging in she noticed that Brian was already online and waiting for her.

"Is Brian sick or something? Is that why you live at home instead of at the school? Is he in trouble?" Alexis was honestly worried. Since he was an orphan, and Emily had already semi-adopted him, Brian had become like his older brother, even though they had only met over the net. 

"No. It is a twin thing, I suppose." 'As well as he needs to be looked on because you never know when mother will try to bring him to the medical clinic to have something messed around with,' she added silently in her mind. Hearing the chat screen pop up, she typed _I am fine _in response to Brian's _how ya doin?_

"Can I talk to him? Can I? Can I?" Alexis nearly jumped into the wall as Emily nodded. 

**MI5t4r2:** hi bri!

**BRI5t4r1:** hey lxi. what's going on?

**MI5t4r2:** emi's waiting for the exam to start. im so excited for her!

**BRI5t4r1:** that's good. hey, how'd you do on you're kung-fu and short swords exams? 

**MI5t4r2:** really well! i think i might have messed up some of the stances on the KF exam…

**MI5t4r2:** but other than that, i did really well

**BRI5t4r1:** that's good. tell emi to watch her back when she goes up against Tiffany

Alexis looked up from the computer screen. "Hey, Emi? Bri-bri says to watch out for Tiffany."

Emily looked sternly at the little boy, (as if she looks like anything else), "Would you mind if I took the computer for a bit?" Alexis handed it over and Emily began to type.

**MI5t4r2:** What is the matter with you Brian, scaring Alexis like that.

**BRI5t4r1:** my friend, hkrextreme712, he told me to run a search on mastery, Anderson and bio 

**BRI5t4r1:** the results that i got back were disturbing. Can u run the search now?

**MI5t4r2:** Not at the moment. The bell to start classes just began, so my exam is going to be commencing soon.

**BRI5t4r1:** just be careful, kay emi?

**MI5t4r2:** Alright Brian. I will be certain to do so. I will speak with you later.

**BRI5t4r1:** ttyl

Emily signed off. 'I wonder what that was all about. It was not important enough for me to cancel my exam.' She shut the computer off and told Alexis to go to class. "Good luck Emi! I hope you do really well!" He called as he ran to his classroom. She nodded her thanks and locked the janitor's closet.

Walking to the computer lab where she would take the first part of the exam, she wondered why Brian was telling her to watch her back. The only competition she had was Tiffany, who was born to be a cheerleader. She had dark hair and black eyes, but that didn't stop the ditz from doing as good ditzy girls do. The person in question was in fact, on the cell phone when Emily walked into the room.

"I know! I said those boots totally do not go with those pants! But would she believe me? Like, totally no!" Tiffany heard the door open and glared at Emily. "Hey, the albino chick's just arrived. Looks like I'll have to take the exam after all. You've made like, arrangements?"

"Yes. Everything is set in place. Do not worry Tiffany. You will get the mastery." Her older brother Tim told her from the other end of the phone.

"Oh, you're such a doll….Gina! We totally need to hook up once I get this over. Thanks again!" Then Tiffany hung up the phone.

Tim smiled at the three other people looking at him anxiously. "There's no need to worry. She knows what to do."

One of the other men rolled his eyes. "This is Tiffany we're talking about here. If it was any other mastery than the matrix, I'd feel more confident sending her in, but she's the only one that can be eligible this year, so we had to pick her. She'll screw it up. She never does well on written exams."

Tim smiled. "That's the beauty of it father. Even if she flat out fails the exam, she'll still be the only one available to become the apprentice to the matrix master. He's going to die of cancer soon, so he has to pick an apprentice this year. So the only choice he can make is Tiffany."

"I hope you're right about this."

"Oh, don't worry. I am."

Meanwhile, Emily and Tiffany and just received their written exams and were starting through all the paper work. Emily looked at her test paper:

Written Final Exam on Crouching Tiger World

Multiple Choice Questions: These are worth two points each and are based around situations that could occur in the world that this test is based around.

1. When challenged by a little old man to fight, you should:

a. Insult him and commence a battle at once

b. Ignore him and continue on your way

c. Kill him off because he was a threat to the world anyway

d. Give the man a daisy and hope that it fixes everything

Emily rolled her eyes. 'They could not find anyone with a higher intellect than a Teletubbie to produce this test? I hope the rest of the questions and the other tests are more challenging than this.'

Tiffany was struggling with her first test:

Written Final Exam on Matrix World

Multiple Choice Questions: These are worth two points each and are based around situations that could occur in the world that this test is based around.

1. When an agent appears, what is the best course of action?

a. Fight him in hand-to-hand combat in the hopes of stalling for help to arrive

b. Run as fast as you can from the agent

c. Shoot a gun at him because his sunglasses are annoying

d. Pay him money because everyone can be bribed

'Great. Which do I choose? C or D? Come on…which is it? C or D? Or might it be A? A looks like a good choice…I think that  C is the best choice. Or is it D?'

At the end of the three hour session, both girls handed in their written exams. Tiffany with nervous jitters and Emily with cold boredom. The teacher smiled at them. "Congratulations girls. You have a half hour break to prepare for your physical exams. This includes changing into your exam suits." Emily promptly left the room to head to the janitor's closet to change. 

Tiffany smiled evilly and took out her cell phone. "Ti—I mean Gina! I just like so totally finished my exam. It's going to be tough, but I know I'm going to do well on my physical exam. I mean, how hard can Tai-Kwan-Doe and a gun exam be?"

"Don't let your guard down. Do you remember what you have to do?"

"Yup! Get through my…I mean, get through the worlds and pass my exams. Then we do operation Tiffy-Shop!" the last part was whispered. On the other end, there was a sigh. "Did you have to name it operation Tiffy-shop?"

"Absolutely! What else would you call it?"

"Um.. how about Operation Destroy Emily Miller?"

"No. that's too boring. Besides, it doesn't mention me at all!"

'Oh, my god. We're really placing all this responsibility on this ditz?' Tim thought worriedly while slapping himself on the forehead.

* * * * *

**BRI5t4r1:** how was your exam?

**MI5t4r2:** They were completely devoid of any challenging questions. I have to prepare for my physical exams. 

**BRI5t4r1:** ur ninja stars set? 

**MI5t4r2:** Yes. What were you speaking about earlier? How I should watch my back? 

**BRI5t4r1:** did u run the search?

**MI5t4r2:** I haven't had the time. I was occupied with my exam.

**BRI5t4r1:** Just watch ur back when you go into the worlds for ur exams

**BRI5t4r1: **I don't want u to end up like me

**MI5t4r2:** Do you believe that she will attempt to hurt me? She can do nothing in the testing environment.

**BRI5t4r1:** Yeah, but just be careful.

Emily heard the bell for the rest of the student body to go to lunch. She logged off and moved out of the closet. Heading for the portal room for her physical exam. When she arrived, Tiffany had not yet, so she patiently sat in one of the many seats that were in the lobby of the portal room. 

"Emily." She turned to see her teacher, in both martial arts and ninja stars, Miss Boroski. "I hope that you do well in your tests today."

Emily bowed, as was expected of a student and nodded. Miss Boroski smiled. "Still not talking much are we?"

"No. Not really." She replied straightening her back. "But I thank you for your encouragement."

"That's a good girl." Miss Boroski looked around and nodded. "Well, why don't we get started?" She walked into the portal room and started the machines. In the middle, there was a circular dais with three machines pointed at it. "You chose the matrix-world, the crouching tiger world and the world of Tortal? So you can have your physical exams in the crouching tiger world and the Tortallian world. Would that be alright?"

Emily nodded. Miss Boroski beckoned. "Come. Let's begin. Follow my lead." The teacher pressed a few buttons on the console, and the machines flashed light to form a ball of light floating several feet above the dais. In this, was reflected a picture of a bamboo forest. "We'll start with your martial arts exam." Then she stepped into the ball of light and disappeared. Emily followed her.

She knew that the world that she was in now wasn't real, it was just a replica of the Crouching Tiger world that was created by the school so students could practice without having to deal with any real dangers. Emily turned to face her teacher as her teacher struck out. Emily parried the blow with her leg and spun away. Her exam began.

Tiffany arrived as her teacher did. "Okay, I'm like ready for this. I chose the same worlds as that Emily girl did. So let's get this over with, okay?" Her teacher rolled his eyes. "You chose Crouching Tiger, Tortal and Matrix? You can take your physical exams in the Crouching Tiger world and the Tortal world." Then he proceeded to start up one of the other five portals. He then walked into the ball of light and disappeared. Tiffany skipped into the room and tripped on the steps of the dais. Then she walked into the ball of light as well.

A few hours later, both girls were completely done with their exams, except for the last part: Traveling to the Matrix world. Tiffany was looking pretty tired and Emily was just tired of the exams. The teacher who had given them the written exams smiled as she enthusiastically explained it to them. 

"You've practiced going into docile worlds, but since this is the first time that you are going into a real world, I will warn you that if you get into serious trouble, we may not be able to rescue you. But don't worry about that. All you have to do is go into the world, and find the portal that we've set up for you. Understand?

"Emily, you use this portal and Tiffany, you can use this portal." The girls took their places on the daises. "Remember, don't dawdle. You're not timed, but don't take forever or you'll have points taken off. 

"Normally, you have the master of the world there to watch over you, but  the Matrix Master was unable to be present here today due to unforeseen trouble. You are you ready? Go."

Both girls closed their eyes and formed mental pictures of the Matrix world. Then the teacher pushed the button and there was a bright light. When the light had faded, both girls were gone and the teachers knew that they were in the matrix world. 

* * * * *

Emily opened her eyes and saw the world inside the matrix. Looking down at herself, she saw herself dressed in a black cat suit. 'This façade is pointless. Those involved with Zeon and the agents will instantly recognize that I am not from this world, particularly since I will not have coding. I wish they would learn to pick something less degrading for us to wear.' Familiarizing herself with her surroundings, she closed her eyes and concentrated. 

Locating the point of interest, she slowly opened her eyes. 'The portal is about five street blocks away. All I need to do is get there before Tiffany without experiencing any difficulties.' Heading toward the middle of the city and watching carefully, she walked out of the alley that she was standing in and into the pedestrian traffic. 

* * * * *

Tiffany opened her eyes and found herself inside the matrix. Looking at her outfit she grimaced. "Why do I have to get stuck in some gothic outfit? Why can't it be a cat suit or something for once. I really don't like this baggy business. Gee, you'd think they'd never heard of mid-riffs here." Rolling her eyes she spun in a circle. "So I have to find the portal. No problem. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed her home number.

"Tim? Tim, are you there?" Hearing an affirmative on the other side, she continued, "So what do I do now? Right. Attack her when she least suspects it. But what if she can beat me in the martial arts thingy? What if I lose?" She paused. "Oh. I forgot that she doesn't do guns. She does those whatcha-ma-callits. She's not allowed to have those here. Okay! TTYL!" 

Closing her cell, she started jogging out of the alleyway that she was standing in. Then she concentrated for a moment and tried to psychically pinpoint where Emily was. "Okay. Focus, focus, focus. Come on Tiffany! Wait, I know!" She called her brother again.

"Tim? Where's that Emily girl? What? You don't know? You're supposed to be able to tell me where she, like is! I can't do this alone! What am I supposed to do? Call rent-a-cop?" She glared at some pedestrians. "What are you staring at? You'd think you've never seen someone on a cell phone before, like oh my god." 

Suddenly she fell silent as her brother told her what to do. "Thanks Tim!" Shutting her cell phone off, she headed in the direction of the portal, where Emily was heading as well. Along the way, she pulled her personal gun out of her pocket. "Emily, this is going to be mine. There's no way that you can get this."

* * * * * 

Emily turned the corner, blending in the best that she could with the crowd, considering teenage girls in black cat suits were not common in any world, and felt the presence of the portal down another alley. Just as she was about to turn into the alley, she heard "Stop right there girlfriend!"

Rolling her eyes, she turned around and saw Tiffany dressed in a black trench coat and what looked like, a black army combat uniform. Emily merely stared at Tiffany, not wanting to be the first one to start the conversation with the little ditz-arama. 

"Whoa, that is so not fair! How come you get the cool black cat suit, and I get stuck in this gothic crap? Ugh, that is so not fair. I should be the one that gets the better outfit. I've got more fashion sense!"

"Did you have a reason for stopping me?" Emily asked coldly. "If not, then I will proceed to complete this test."

Tiffany appeared to think for a moment and then came up with, "Oh, yeah. Stop there girlfriend!"

"I believe we already covered that."

Glaring at her, Tiffany responded, "Shut up! Like, don't make fun of me! I challenge you!"

Emily raised an eyebrow. "Challenge me to what?"

"A battle of course, what else would I challenge you to?"

"With you, I would expect anything."

"Hey! Is that supposed to be, like, an insult or something? That is so not nice."

"It wasn't supposed to be." Emily turned to head down the alleyway so that she could finally reach the portal. 'Why did Brian warn me? There is nothing to concern myself with, considering she has a lower IQ than George Bush.' Suddenly, she sensed something wasn't right.

Emily flipped herself to the side, barely dodging the bullet that would have gone through her right shoulder. Looking at Tiffany, who was still pointing the gun at her, she said calmly. "I do not know whether to be more appalled by your aim or your stupidity."

Tiffany's eyes bulged and her gun arm shook a little in anger. "What do you mean? If you hadn't like, done the funky stuff then you'd be so dead. That was like, a perfect shot."

"Except that you failed to notice that the bullet would have gone through my shoulder, and not my chest as I expect you wanted it to. May I also ask, since when has someone's heart been on the _right_ side of their chest?" Emily sighed and continued to walk toward the portal, which was at the end of the alley.

"Hold it right there! I'm not done yet!" Tiffany yelled at Emily's retreating back. Suddenly, Emily was right beside her. She kicked Tiffany's arm and the gun flew up into the air, only to be caught by Emily. Then she aimed the gun right at Tiffany's head. 

"I think you are. I suggest you stop this stupidity and just complete the test." Then she slowly walked away, still holding the gun. She threw the gun back to the girl and then blurred to the portal. Sending one last glare at Tiffany, she transported back to the real world.

Tiffany stood in awe and then pulled out her cell phone. "Tim! We, like so have a problem! She beat me! She did this hocus pocus stuff and she got to the portal before me! ….What do you mean, you have it all under control? Oh." Then she started laughing. "That's a good one! I'll be back in a few minutes." Turning off the cell phone she noticed there was an agent walking down the street toward her. 'Uh oh.' She ran into the alley and dove into the portal.

A few seconds later, she rolled off the dais and stood up in the portal room. "Whew! That was a close one!" Emily stood in the corner with her arms crossed, glaring at Tiffany. Then she looked at the teacher. 

"Good job girls! You'll get your results soon!" She cheerfully showed them out. Emily walked directly to the janitor's closet, grabbing her belongings and then locked it up again. 'That was pathetically simple. There is no way that she can get the apprenticeship of the matrix.'

"Don't look so cocky. There, is like, no way that you can get the apprenticeship of the matrix. I am so totally getting it and there is nothing that you can do about it." Tiffany put on her best arrogant ditz pose and smiled nastily. "You may have beaten me there, but there is totally no way that you are getting something this is mine."

"You do not determine who is bestowed with the apprenticeship of the matrix world." She turned on her heel and walked away from the annoying little brat. 

"Emi! Emi!" Turning, she saw Alexis running down the hall. "How did you do?" He stopped, panting in front of her. "How did you do? Does Bri know?"

Looking up to the sky, Emily tilted her head. "I believe I did well. Thank you for asking." She looked down at Alexis. "I wonder. Would you like to come to my house for dinner?"

Alexis' face lit up. "Are you serious? I could come to your house? Really? No one's ever been to your house! I'd love to come. Would I get to meet your parents?"

Emily started walking, beckoning for the child to follow her. "No. My father works away from home. Whether you chose to meet my mother is your decision." Alexis skipped along next to her. "Of course, Brian is there too."

"You mean I get to meet Brian? I've only ever gotten to speak with him on AIM. You're joking, right?" Emily shook her head. "I never joke." Alexis' smile widened even more. "Wow. I'm lucky. I get to meet Brian Miller, the famous hacker and brother of Emily Miller, soon-to-be famous Traveler!"

"I am not famous and I would not tell Brian that he is so. His inflated ego might burst if it becomes any larger than it already is."

"Still! This is so cool!" They turned left after they walked out of the school gates. 

Tiffany watched from the shadows of one of the trees in the front of the school. "Emily, I will beat you this time. I won't lose out anymore." Her cell phone rang. "Jen? Are you for real? There's a sale down at Clothes R Us? Alright! I'll be there in a few! TTYL!" She ran out of the schoolyard, headed for the nearest public transportation system to go to the mall.

* * * * *

"Wow, Emi. This is your house? It's so big and it's got a ramp in it! That is so cool! Why do you have a ramp in your house?" Alexis' eyes were huge in wonder as he stared around the house. "You know, I've never been inside a house before. I've just lived at the Academy for as long as I can remember."

Emily stared at the little boy. 'I wonder why he has only lived at the Academy. I will research his history later.' She explained, "Brian has been in a wheelchair since he was twelve because he was in a traffic accident." 'A traffic accident that destroyed his ability to walk, use his martial arts skills and Travel.' 

Brian wheeled down the ramp. "Hey Emi! How did you do on your exams?" Alexis hid behind Emily's back. 

"I believe I performed satisfactorily, but that is not saying much considering my opponent was no significant challenge." She pulled Alexis from out behind her. "This is Alexis. The boy you speak to on AIM whenever I am not present?"

Brian held out his hand. "Pleased to meet you Alexis." Alexis looked at Emily to see if it was acceptable for him to take Brian's hand. Brian was confused. "Emily, what's the matter with him? Is he shy? I wouldn't think he was from the way that he talks on the net."

She shook her head. "I believe he is stunned at having the opportunity to meet you in person. It appears he worships you to some degree." Alexis crossed his arms. "Hey Emi, that's not fair! I don't worship him! That would be stupid. I was just wondering at how that thing that he's sitting in works."

Blinking she made eye contact with Brian. "What? My wheelchair?" He hit himself on the forehead. "I keep forgetting that we are the only ones who still use wheelchairs." He smiled at Alexis. "It's basically a chair with wheels. Do you want to try it out?"

Alexis nodded. "Sure!" Brian turned it around and wheeled himself up the ramp. "Come on, 'Lexi. Let's see what you can do!" Alexis ran up the ramp as well and examined the wheelchair as Brian got himself out of it and settled on the floor. "Wow! This is cool! You get to sit around in this thing all day? That would be so cool!" Brian laughed.

Emily rolled her eyes. 'They are almost exactly the same, except in appearance.' She walked up the stairs to her and Brian's room. Turning on the computer, she decided to do the search on Alexis' family. 'Where to begin, I wonder. This should be trivial.'

She logged on to Brian's personal search program that worked twice as well as the current search engines on the net. 'Find-a-lot' had never failed either one of them. Emily typed in "alexis" "family" "2116". The search engine came up with nothing. 'How peculiar. The search engine never fails to produce results. Could it be that Alexis was erased from records for a reason?' Perplexed, she glared at the computer screen, as if it would give up the information under the threat of death by glare.

"Emi! What'cha looking at?" Alexis popped up behind her. She quickly minimized the screen. "Restricted information."

"Ooh, can I see too?" She shook her head. "It is restricted and I would not want to endanger you by allowing you to view this. I do apologize if I appear to be snubbing you."

"It's okay. I understand what you're getting at." Alexis looked around the room. "Is this your room, or Brian's?"

"It's both of ours," answered Brian, wheeling himself in. "So Emily, how did exams go? When you say that you 'performed satisfactorily' what do you mean by that?"

"I performed in a satisfactory manner."

Brian rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. Did anything strange happen?"

Emily nodded. "Tiffany attempted to assassinate me with a gun while we were in the Matrix world, but aside from that, nothing was particularly strange."

Alexis and Brian yelled, "What? She tried to kill you?" in perfect unison. They looked at each other and then back at Emily. Brian looked worried, "See, I told you they would try something. Have you run the search yet?" Alexis looked at Brian in alarm. "You knew that something would happen? How?"

"If Emi ran the search, I'm sure she could tell you." He said dryly.

Emily turned around the face the computer. "If you insist upon my running this search, I will do so immediately." She typed in "mastery + Anderson + bio". Find-a-lot spent several minutes scouring the net for anything. "Are you certain Brian that this search actually yields information worthwhile?"

"Yeah. Click on the last article on the last page." Emily did so and a page popped up:

Have you ever wanted a reason to hate the government, but haven't found a legitimate one yet? Well, if learning that Traveling and parallel worlds exist wasn't enough, now there's something else gone afoul. Everyone knows the names of the current masters of each of the five major worlds: Discworld, Middle Earth, Galactic Empire, Wizarding World and the Matrix Mastery:

Discworld Mastery: Elaine Gatz, 43 years old

Middle Earth Mastery: Tim Anderson, 20 years old

Galactic Empire Mastery: Edward Tyson, 56 years old

Wizarding World Mastery: Chris Black, 25 years old

Matrix World Mastery: Jin Minamino, 89 years old

We all know that this year, Jin Minamino, who is suffering from cancer, is picking an apprentice. The Academy's two candidates are Emily Miller and Tiffany Anderson. The only difficulty, is that there are strict rules about how many relatives can have masteries at a given time. Now, look closely at the names of the masters, except for Jin Minamino. They don't seem related in any way, do they?

What if you knew that Elaine Gatz's maiden name was "Anderson"? Or that "Tyson" is just Edward's business name for acting, and his birth name was "Anderson"? So you have Elaine Anderson, Edward Anderson, Tim Anderson, possibly Tiffany Anderson and Chris Black. Turns out that Elaine is Edward's brother. Chris is a distant cousin, but a relative none the less. Tim and Tiffany are both children of Edward.

Are the authorities picking up on this?! Or are they blind to the truth? Chances are, they are really blind to the truth because if you look at the circumstances of how each of these people got their mastery, the authorities have to be supporting this conquest.

Edward Tyson's three other classmates had malfunctioning machines when they took the exam, and were unable to successfully complete their exam, therefore giving Edward the apprenticeship. Then, Elaine Gatz had only one other person to compete against: however, this person contracted a disease soon before the exam and was too weak to take the test. Chris Black had two other members in his class. Supposedly, they claim that they were attacked by forces from the worlds when they took the exam, and unable to finish the exam in the time constraint.

The most interesting of all these is the most recent of the Andersons to get their mastery: Tim. Tim was a student at the Academy four years ago, excelling in everything, but Brian Miller, a twelve-year-old prodigy, shadowed his achievements. At the time of the exam, Brian exceeded Tim's scores, and was granted the apprenticeship of Middle Earth. However, that night, Brian was involved in a car collision that left him crippled. Unable to Travel, Brian was forced to give up his apprenticeship and it was granted to Tim by default.

As Tiffany goes for her apprenticeship, we wonder: how safe is Emily Miller? The sister of Brian, we can only wonder what will happen to her.

But if Tiffany manages to get the apprenticeship, this makes five masteries commanded by five members of the same family. As proven by their antics to get this far, we have to wonder what the family has planned once Tiffany is put into place.

Alexis finished reading first and turned to face Brian. "Is that why you're in a wheelchair? They took you out?"

"We do not have proof that it was the Anderson family that committed this, but we have both been aware that the system was corrupted and that the family is attempting to claim all the masteries. However, we do not want to tell the authorities in the event that they want to erase Brian's memories, which they cannot do without justification from the school."

"Is that why you, John and Ryan still have you're memories?" Alexis asked Brian.

Brian stared at him in shock. "How did you know about John and Ryan? They dropped out a year before the exam."

Alexis beamed, "It was easy. I just looked searched for past conversations between BRI5t4r1, hkrxtreme712,  and dudetinageturtlz4kul. I knew that's what you called yourselves and it was easy to find bios for them. Then I checked the school records and they weren't there anymore. I knew they had been there, because they have those blog things."

"As you can see, I was correct in my assumption that he worships you and your friends." Emily remarked.

"I don't worship…I'm just obsessed!" Alexis appeared to pout but then he asked, "So you guys knew what was going on?"

"We knew that Ed Tyson was an Anderson, like Tim. We didn't think that Gatz and Black were involved in this as well. The situation went from bad to worse, because now all of them have the masteries of the major Traveling worlds."

"Except for Tiffany. It is not certain that she will find a loop hole this time around. She performed abdisomly in every aspect of the exam."

Brian shrugged. "Well, we can hope." He turned to Alexis, "hey, do you want to watch some tv or something downstairs, so Emily can get some rest, I'm sure she's really tired." Alexis bounded out of the room and Brian wheeled out after him.****

'As if this could not become any more confusing and dangerous than it already is.' Emily sighed and decided to run the search on Alexis' family again. Again, Find-a-lot came up with no results. 'How strange. It is not normal for the government to delete records of someone. What is so peculiar about Alexis that his records were completely erased?'

She sat back in the swivel chair at the desk and thought for a few moments. 'It is not probable that he would not have records. That never occurs with the current system. But it is not impossible. Perhaps he never had records, therefore, if he never possessed them, then there would be no records in existence.'

Suddenly, a little chat box popped up. It was Ryan. Emily had forgotten to change her name when she'd gone on the computer. 

**dudetinageturtlz4kul: **hey, brian you have to see this

**BRI5t4r1:** I'm not Brian.

**dudetinageturtlz4kul:** em? dat u?

**BRI5t4r1:** Yes.

**dudetinageturtlz4kul:** rite neway, u hav 2 run a search on mastery matrix today

**BRI5t4r1:** Fine.

**dudetinageturtlz4kul:** click on da first site

Emily clicked on the first link that Find-a-lot brought her and waited for the page to load up. The minute it was all there, she looked at the title of the page. Then her eyes moved to the first line of the article, and as she read the first several words, she froze. Her eyes widened, then they narrowed. "No. This cannot be possible."

Today, two students at the Academy of Traveling Arts vied for the position as the apprentice to Jin Minamino, the current Master of the Matrix World. After a close tie, Tiffany Anderson was selected to succeed the old Traveler.

Brian and Alexis were having a contest to see who could eat more Skittles during a commercial break. "Bri, that's not fair! You have a bigger mouth. It doesn't count if you stuff them all into your mouth but you don't actually chew them."

"Yes it is," said Brian, spitting out Skittles as he tried to communicate. Alexis laughed and shook his head. "Nope. Not fair, doesn't count. So hah!"

Brian swallowed the last of his skittles and turned to look at the television. "Damn, it's back to the show. Just you wait for the next commercial break, then we can see who can eat more chips!" Then he turned to watch the reality tv show. "This show is so stupid. No one cares how much wait this chick lost and how much better she looks."

Alexis nodded. "That's not reality. If it was real, they'd come back in two weeks and see if she still looked that good. They'd had before, after and after-the-after pictures. 'You thought the before was bad, check out the after-the-after pictures!'" he giggled. Brian smiled, but his smile disappeared as a news break came on.

"We interrupt these programs to bring you important news: today, at the ATA, or Academy of Training Arts, there was a confrontation of an alarming nature. While taking the required martial arts examination, Tiffany Anderson was attacked by Emily Miller, a fellow student. We have Tiffany on record."

Brian watched in horror as Tiffany came on the screen, playing the part of a terrified teenage girl. Alexis sat looking confused. 

"It was horrible. We were waiting for the instructor to get there and she suddenly just took out a gun and aimed it right at my head! Then she was going to pull the trigger on me, but I got out of the way in time. The bullet was this close to my head!" 

"Thank you Tiffany. Apparently after attacking Tiffany, Emily Miller assaulted the teachers present during the exam. Unfortunately, these teachers were unable to testify due to hospitalization…"

Brian slowly shook his head, "No. This can't be happening. It's just like last time." Alexis looked at him. 

"What do you mean like last time?" Brian sighed and started to explain. 

"You read the article, right? The one that basically said that the Andersons caused the accident that made me like this? Well, last time, they claimed the other driver was not at fault because they claimed that I had been driving drunk."

"So they put the blame on you for something you didn't do just so they could get the position, right?" Alexis concluded. "But Emi doesn't go to the Academy of Training Arts. She goes to the Academy of Traveling Arts."

"That's the government's way of covering up Traveling. They don't want everyone to know about it, so the school is called the Training Arts instead of Traveling Arts. Chances are, they'll put out a warrant for her arrest, but that'll be mild compared to what the authorities will do."

"What would the authorities do?"

"The authorities have placed a warrant for my capture and displayed images around the entire net. They claim that it is within their jurisdiction for my capture because I am charged with offenses for assault of a Traveling executive, attempted murder, misuse of the portals, and abuse of the Traveling system." Emily walked into the room. The only indication of her severe anger was that her left fist was clenched so tightly that blood was dripping onto the floor.

Brian's mouth dropped open. "Are they actually believing that crap that you pulled a gun on her first?"

"They say she shot me in self-defense. One of your little companions, the "turtlzrkul" informed me that the authorities have already begun searching at the Academy." She closed her eyes. "I need a location to hide myself until their security becomes lax enough that I can escape."

"But where would you go? The authorities will have the masters monitoring the portals to their worlds. There are no worlds that you can go to. You can't even leave the country because the normal hovercraft system is going to be on the alert for you too." Brian looked at Alexis. "I'll take Alexis back to the Academy and you hide downstairs."

"That will not work."

"Why not?" Brian glared at her. "He wasn't part of this! They can have nothing against him."

"Except that they have decided that he has associated with me excessively in the recent weeks, so they believe that he is an accomplice. It does not help that he does not possess records in the government identification system and he has no family records as well." She looked at the little boy who was cowering on the sofa behind a pillow.

Brian wiped his hand over his face. "Are you serious? So now, he's wanted too? I suppose that I'm wanted for helping you hide." Emily nodded with her calm indifference. "We have to hide all three of us before the authorities catch on to where we are."

There were three harsh knocks at the front door. "We are too late. They have already arrived." Emily walked quickly to the power source in the kitchen and flicked the switch. Immediately, all the lights and electrical appliances turned off. Alexis was stunned. "Why'd you do that?"

"Be quiet, right now, okay? We don't want them to hear us." Brian lifted a finger to his lips. "Emi, give me hand here, okay?" He hauled himself out of his wheelchair and onto Emily's back. Then he turned to Alexis. "Follow us. We're going to hide downstairs for now."

Emily walked to the back of the room and stood in front of the large painting over the sofa. "Alexis, do you see the gold circle on the bottom right hand corner of the frame, press that, quickly." Alexis did so and the painting slid out of the way to show a passage that lead steeply downway. "Come, quickly."

Leading the way, Alexis scrambled into the passage and the twins followed soon after. Then the painting closed again, just as three men barged through the front door.

"Number 1, I don't think anyone's home. You saw the away message on the door, and everything's turned off."

"You don't think I noticed that, number 2? They obviously just turned everything off and are hiding somewhere in the house."

"Really? That's amazing number 1! How do you think of these things?" 

The Authority called 'number 1' smirked, "there is a reason that I am number 1 and that you are number 3, number 3."

Number 2, "I don't understand why we have to have number names and do we have to call each other be each other's numbers every time we address one another?"

"Yes, number 2. That is the system. Any more lip and I demote your number. We can promote number 3, who I think would be pleased with the promotion."

"Alright, number 1, I'll shut up."

"Good, number 2."

Number 1 walked into the living room. "They will probably have a passage hidden somewhere behind something. Check behind any pictures or large pieces of furniture, anything that looks like it could be hiding something."

"Yes number 1!" Number 3 began energetically scrambling around the room for anything that looked suspicious. Number 2 started looking around, clearly not putting one hundred percent effort forward. Number 1 walked over the wall with the painting and lifted it. There was nothing but blank wall behind it. 'Damn. I was so sure that there would be a passage behind it.'

Number 3 leaned against the frame of the painting and unwittingly pushed in the corner button and the painting swung to the side, revealing a tunnel with stairs leading downward. "WOW! Did I do that?!"

"No, number 3. I discovered it, but you assisted me in executing the procedure." Number 1 lied quickly. 

"Wow! That would have been cool if I discovered how to do it, but it was cool to help you out, number 1!"

Number 2 looked at the ceiling, 'Kami—sama, how did I end up with the worst control freak in the world and his little bitch as my partners?'

* * * ** 

Emily, Brian, and Alexis had reached the end of the stairway. They walked into a little room where there was a Inidivicom logged on. "What's this place?" Alexis stared around in wonder. "Do all houses have these weird places underground for when the authorities come for them?"

Brian laughed as Emily set him down on a worn out sofa. "Nope. Just us. Emi and I found this place when we were younger and used it as a hiding place when mom would come on a yelling spree. It was convenient. Also, this is where I do most, if not all of my serious hacking. I'm not talking about school records or news conference rooms, I'm talking about decoding major government restricted access sites to see what conspiracies there are."

"Wow. That's so cool!" Alexis was over his fear and awe of having the authorities after him and was back in hyper mode. "So how's Emily going to escape? It's not like the authorities are going to leave anytime soon, they're going to guard the house like a dog."

"She could try using her ninja skills that she learned at the Academy to run away and chill out in the forest, fight bears and stuff." Brian joked. "Then she could make an underground secret hide out and then we could come later and then we could be pioneers!"

"I do not think that is a suitable solution. I refuse to lower myself to your level to even contemplate such a ridiculous idea."

"Come Emi, I was just joking."

Alexis thought for a moment then piped in with, "Why doesn't she Travel to another world? They wouldn't be able to find her."

Brian shook his head. "Nope. No can do. The masters are out looking for her as well. There's no way that she could get in without being detected."

"She could Travel to a world that isn't monitored by a master." Alexis smiled.

"It is not that simple. If you are referring to the an1m3 worlds, they have been closed off for some time." Emily twisted her head to look at Alexis. "In addition to the sealed portals, there is no energy source to supply the necessary power to Travel."

"Well, they told us in class that the old Travelers used to have objects they left in the worlds when they Traveled the first time. They had connectors that linked them. Then they didn't have to have a power source."

Brian nodded. "But they chucked the objects because they would get lost, destroyed or something. That's why they developed the portal machine system, so they wouldn't have to use an object. Besides, were you going any where with that an1m3 world idea? You couldn't possibly have a connector in one of the worlds… they were closed off ten years ago, before you were born."

"Oh." Alexis' face fell. Emily sat down on the sofa on the other side of Alexis. "Did you believe that you had some connector?"

Alexis shrugged sadly. "I don't know. This lady keeps coming to talk to me in my dreams—"

Brian interrupted, "Does she look old, have an old bag, offer you candy and tell you a bunch of fortune cookie stuff?"

"Brian, do not interrupt him and do not assume that every woman that appears in a dream is the oracle from the matrix." She nodded to Alexis. "Continue."

"Well, she came to me in my dreams and she keeps showing me these pictures of this pretty place. It's got lots of trees and stuff. She said that I was special she told me these two words to say if I was in trouble, and it would give me the power to Travel to where I wanted to go."

"A lady came and told you that? Well, welcome to the club of weirdoes who get strange people telling you things about different worlds. We had people tell us basically that the world was going to end and we had to help them or something."

"That is not important at the moment, Brian." Emily turned back to Alexis, "Do you recognize the images that she displayed in your dreams?"

Alexis shook his head, "Na-huh. They feel familiar, as if I've seen them before."

"Maybe you're from another country or something, where there's a lot trees and stuff. That would explain why our government wouldn't have any records on you or your family if you're foreign." Brian said thoughtfully. 

"However, even if he originated from another country, that country would have transferred the records upon his arrival in New York. Therefore, it explains nothing." Emily remarked. Brian scowled at her. "Besides, his records are not important at the moment."

Brian held up his hands in defeat, "Geez, you're impossible Emi. Alexis, do you remember the words that she told you to say? What are they supposed to do?"

"They give me the power to Travel." 

"Why don't you say them, and then we can Travel out of here and save Emi."

"But we're not in trouble right now."

Numbers 1, 2 and 3 barged into the little room. Number 1 stepped forward, and stated, "Emily Miller, we officiate your capture for charges of assault, misuse, abuse and attempted murder. You have the right to remain silent, because if you say anything we'll punch you're lights out."

Number 3 snickered semi-evilly and said, "We got you now, there's no where to run." Number 1 flicked his head in Emily's direction saying, "Number 2, capture her. Now."

Brian nudged Alexis. "If we're not in trouble not, what do you classify as trouble?"

Muttering under his breath, Number 2 walked slowly over to the emotionless teen and held out a pair of arm bands. Emily turned around and allowed him to put the arm bands on her—almost. She lifted her foot sharply, putting Number 2 on the floor squeaking. Then she twisted her arms out of the arm bands and sent them flying into Number 3, who suffered an instant concussion and fell to the ground.

Number 1 pulled out a laser gun, which only authorities were allowed to carry. "You can probably guess that I'm a little hesitant to get close to a psycho bitch who turned a gun on a fellow classmate. But there's no way that you can punch or kick your way through a laser beam." He aimed at her heart. "I hope you have some prayer ready for whatever heathen god is prepared to accept you in your afterlife."

Emily narrowed her eyes at the man at the other end of the gun, choosing not to reply to that. Alexis looked at number 1 and at Emily. Then he jumped up, grabbed Emily's and Brian's hands and projected images to their minds, saying "take something and pretend you're getting ready to Travel!" 

He shouted "Kai! Jin!" and the three were surrounded in a bright red light. 

Just kidding.

Alexis looked at Emily and Brian and said, "You have to have part of it in your mind or you'll get stuck between dimensions. Brian said, "This won't work! Where are we going?"

"To another world, where they won't find Emi!" Then he shouted, "Kyuusei!" There was a bang and some silver sparkles that erupted from where the three had been standing. Number 1 lowered his arms and looked at the piece of paper that had fallen during their disappearance.

It said, "Hahahaha….suckers! Missed, once again!" Number 1 crumpled it in his hand and then proceeded to kick Number 2 and 3 until they were conscious again. "Come. We have to report to the boss."

Number 2 smirked, "What will you tell him, number 1? You were responsible for this mission to succeed."

Number 1 smiled evilly, "Well, I'm not going to tell him anything, number 2. You're going to be the one to explain to him why the mission failed."

As number 2 and number 3 left the room, number 1 looked at the remaining sparkles on the ground. "Well, it doesn't matter if you're gone, Emily Miller, you're gone and not a problem. Neither is your annoying brother or that little twit. There's no way to stop the boss now." Then he started laughing. "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

End of Part 1

A/N: How was it? If you're confused about anything, let me know and I'll try to explain it. But if you liked it, tune in next time for:

Part 2: Gou ni itte wa gou ni shitage: Obey the customs of the village you enter


	2. Gou ni itte wa gou ni shitage

A/n: Well, here is part two. You may have noticed at this point that my chapters are a bit longer than normal, and that's because I am writing this is parts of about 10,000 words each. So it takes me a little longer to get every part out. I hope you like this as much as the last chapter, because now I'm introducing the Fushigi Yugi characters. As far as I see it, the only Fushigi Yugi characters that will have big roles are Chiriko, Koji, Chichiri and Taisukun because quite frankly, I've seen enough of Miaka, Tamahome, Tasuki and Hotohori to last me a lifetime. Oh and Mitsukake will be there too, but he's kind of background stuff because the guy never says anything anyway.

Disclaimer: I don't own Universe of the Four Gods, any of the Fushigi Yugi characters, Homestar Runner, Sesame Street phrases, or anything related to the Matrix. 

Thank you to my first two reviewers: Ryochan8 and Samurai-Nashie. The reviews you gave were the best that any author could hope for on their first chapter of a new story. ^_^

**Part 2: Gou ni itte wa gou ni shitage: Obey the customs of the village you enter**

"Ugh. What a hangover. Did I drink too much last night or something?" Brian slowly opened his eyes, and struggled to lift his head, but then suddenly he looked confused. "Wait. I don't drink. So why do I feel so bad? Why am I talking out loud to myself? Is this normal behavior? Have I gone insane?" He sat up and looked around.

"Nice. I'm in the middle of a road, in the middle of nowhere. That's just great." He noticed there were some buildings a bit down the road. "Of course, let the cripple land within sight of help, but make him unable to actually get the help." He looked up at the sky. "Wow. That's really blue and I'm acting like a tourist." 

Brian twisted his legs around so they were in front of him and he could sit normally. 'So Alexis says the magic word and an alla-peanut-butter-sandwhich later I'm lost in a country. For I know I could be in a different world. I'm going to punish that kid when I see him next. I hope he and Emi made it okay.'

Watching the trees and grass sway in the wind he sighed and laid back on the ground so he could see the sky. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say I was in ancient Chi…na…" he sat up suddenly. 'Blue sky, looks like ancient China…' A little girl came running down the path. 'A little girl dressed in ancient Chinese clothes that resembles someone familiar…' Brian's eyes grew wide. "He wouldn't. I take that back. He would. He definitely would if it would help Emi and me. That's it, he is so dead when he gets back."

The little girl stopped running and looked at Brian. No, she stared at him. Brian turned and smiled at her. "Excuse me, miss? Could you tell me where I am?" She looked like she was ready to run back down the path. Brian smiled even more, hoping to get her to trust him. "I'm not going to hurt you. I can't anyway; I'm crippled. Can you just tell me what country I'm in? I'm not in the Universe of the Four Gods, am I?"

The little girl smiled and giggled. "You're silly. You can't be in the Uni-verse of the four gods 'cuz it's a scroll. You can't be in a scroll!" She giggled some more. "You're in Konan, dummy." 

Brian smacked his forehead. 'I knew it. I knew it. He did bring us into the Universe of the Four Gods. Alexis' going to having to explain a lot when I find him.' Then he looked at the little girl, to ask her for help, but she was running back down the path toward the village.

"No! Wait! Come Back! Whatever it was I said, I didn't mean it! I swear! Please, come back!" He banged his head on the ground. "You see, Brian? That's what you get for talking to yourself out loud. You scare some poor little girl and now, with any luck, she'll bring some big villagers who will want to burn me for witchcraft! I swear! This is horrible!" He put his head in his hands. "I don't believe this." 

The sun beat down on his head. "Well, if I'm going to die, I'm going to die in the shade of a tree." He turned on his stomach and started to pull himself over to a tree. He was so absorbed in his efforts that he didn't even notice the little girl was back until she asked, "What'cha doing?"

Brian jerked and his heart beat loudly. "Oh my god, what was that for? You just scared the sh---" then he remembered who was talking to and said, "sh----ugar out of me." He looked at her. "As a matter of fact, I was getting myself over to this tree to sit in the shade."

"Why didn't you just walk?"

"I'm crippled. My legs got hurt so I can't use them." Then he continued to wiggle toward the tree. He was nearly there when a man's voice said, "Shoka, is this the boy that you were talking about?"

The little girl nodded and Brian froze where he was. 'This is it, she's brought 'daddy' along with her and now 'daddy's going to kill me.' He closed his eyes, 'Emily, I'm sorry that I didn't get to tease you about getting your first boyfriend, if you ever got one and Alexis, I'm going to haunt you for the rest of your life, kid.'

"Can you sit up at all?" The man kneeled down next to Brian. "It will be easier to heal you if you can sit straight." 

Brian turned on his back and sat up. He looked at the tall man in yellow robes. "Are you...Meeoo gee-one? The doctor?"

The man nodded. "Some call me that, but some call me Mitsukake." Something in Brian's mind clicked, 'Mitsukake. That name rings a bell. Damn! I wish I'd read more of Emi's manga from when she was a little kid. Why couldn't I pay more attention? Right. Mitsukake was the tall one with the cat and an obsession for people named 'Shoka'.' 

Brian stuck out his hand, "Please to meet you Mix-sake. My name is Bri—" he stopped himself in time. 'There's no way that I can pass as a native, but maybe I can pass as a foreigner from some region with a Chinese-sounding name.'

Mitsukake wrinkled his brow. "Your name is Brai?" Brian nodded. 'It's better than nothing.' "Are you from around here? You're not dressed like a normal person."

Looking down at his clothes, Brian winced. 'And of course I had to come in cargo pants and a black t-shirt with a bunch of technical gadgets in my pockets.' He smiled nervously at the healer. "Um…yeah…this is ceremonial wear from where I come from…."

"I've seen clothes that strange before." Warning bells went off in Brian's head, but turned off as Mitsukake continued, "but it is not my business with what clothes you wear. Now let me see. How did you hurt your legs?"

"Um…they were damaged when I got into a carriage accident. I was kicked at the base of my spine by a horse. It cause paralysis." Brian quickly changed the car into a horse and carriage. In truth, when he'd been hit by the car, he went flying and his spine had gotten damaged upon impact with a telephone pole.

"Great Healing Power!" A green light glowed and Brian felt his legs tingle excessively. "There. Your legs are healed." Brian looked at him puzzled.

"Um…okay, whatever you said." Then he tried to stand up and stood for a moment, but fell down again. "See? They're not healed, they're still in paralysis."

Mitsukake shook his head. "Your leg muscles clearly haven't been used in a long time. A little stretching and you should be fine. If you'd like, I can help you get into the village and you can stay at my house until you've fully recuperated."

Brian thought for a moment. "Well, I don't really have any other choice…so lead the way Mitsukake!" The healer picked up Brian and stuck him on his back. Shoka smiled and ran back ahead of them, yelling, "Mama! We've got a new friend! He's got weird clothes and he talks funny!" 

Brian rolled his eyes. 'Oh great. I wonder where Emi and Alexis ended up.'

* * * * * 

Coming to the same conclusion as Brian, Emily looked around at her surroundings. She appeared to have arrived just outside a village near a mountain. She started walking toward the village, in the hopes of being able to acquire some less obviously clothing. 'Since this is undoubtedly the Universe of the Four Gods world, I should acquire some less conspicuous clothing or they will probably mistake me as a priestess from another world.' Emily grimaced inwardly. 'It would be typical for the Academy to establish a uniform that involves a pleated skirt and a sailor-type bodice.'

She walked to the village, and then she suddenly remembered something, 'If I wish to avoid similar circumstances that Yui encountered when she arrived without a protector, I might do better to masquerade as a boy for a while until I can establish myself.' 

Keeping to the shadows, she looked at the villagers as they walked to their fields or shops. 'I will not be capable of paying for an outfit honestly, so I will have to steal. Brian and Alexis will understand my course of action.' Emily kept an eye out for any disregarded belongings, but apparently the villagers were very careful.

'Not even a satchel of discarded laundry. This is impossible.' Then several carts arrived. Emily overheard the merchants yelling that they were selling new imports from up in the northern part of Konan. Everyone in the small village rushed out to see the goods. 

Quietly, Emily slid into one of the houses and quickly located a clean pile of laundry. 'Hopefully these clothes will provide an adequate disguise for me.' She crept out through the back window of the house in the hopes that no one would notice her. 

Running away from the village, she found a rock and changed into the foreign clothing. Now she was dressed in a baggy white shirt with a dark blue tunic over it, with matching pants. 'How fortunate that I am in possession of a pair of boots.' Finishing tying the bright red band around her waist, she examined herself. 'Excellent. Now I appear as a boy from this world would, with the exception of my hair.' Reflecting for a moment, she put her hair up into a bun and tied it. 

After burying her clothes, she made her way back to the village. The merchants were still there, selling their goods. Emily now walked into the village, but she stayed on the edge of the crowd, not wanting to attract attention to herself, lest the owner of the clothing recognized them.

Suddenly, a large number of horses bearing roughened riders arrived in the village. The villagers immediately began to run and scream. "It's the bandits! The bandits of Reikaku! Run for your lives!" The men on the horses stormed into the village center, attacking the caravan of goods.

Emily backed into the shadow of a house. 'These are the bandits of Reikaku, lead by Koji, a friend of Tasuki, the warrior of Suzaku, if I recall from my literature.' Sure enough, the bandit in question arrived on his horse and dismounted. 

"Let's get us some stuff!" He smiled as he led his horse away from the crowd of bandits and were quickly forming in the middle of the village, where the caravan was standing. Emily regarded the bandits as they rummaged through the stuff and as some barged into houses to take things. 

'Strange. These bandits do not appear any more menacing than the local street ruffians in New York.' While she observing the bandits leave the town, someone came up beside her. 

"And why aren't ya yellin' like the rest of them?" Emily turned her head to stare coldly at the man with the dusty black hair who was standing next to her. 'This is Koji, just another stupid bandit, I presume.' She didn't answer his question. 

"Oh, so you're a mute, are you? Well, why don't you come with us. Ya look like a guy who could use a little fun in ya life." Emily just stared at him. "The name's Koji." He stuck out his hand but Emily chose to stare at it instead of accepting. "What's da matta with you? I was jus' kiddin' with the whole mute thing. You got a problem?"

'If I join this band of miscreants, I may be able to determine the location of my brother and Alexis. It will prove to be difficult if I attempt to venture out on my own without a guide. This leaves me no option but to accept his offer.' Emily cringed inwardly, but let no appearance of her inner feelings run across her face. Taking the young man's hand she shook it and then immediately took her hand back.

"That's a bit more like it." Koji put an arm over her shoulder, which he removed when Emily gave him one of her coldest looks. "Alright, how old ya anyway?" Emily rolled her eyes. 'Perhaps if I pretend to be mute for an extended period of time, I can make everyone believe that I truly do not speak, then I would not have to answer all of their stupid questions.'

Koji stared at her. "Well, ya gotta talk sometime, even if you're a mute. Ya look like you're just a kid. How old are ya?" She glared back at him. 'I hope this disguise works, because if it fails to perform its duty, then I am in danger.' Koji raised an eyebrow. "Okay, so ya don't wanna tell me how old ya are, that's fine. But what's you're name, anyway?"

Emily froze. 'If I am to pass as a native to some degree, my name cannot be extremely foreign. I need an Asian-derived name that I will respond to. Emily. Emi.' Quickly thinking she said, "Ami." Koji started. "So you're not a mute afta all. Well, if you don't like talkin' that's okay wit me."

Koji jumped onto his horse and indicated that Emily should get on behind him. 'If Brian ever learns of what I have decided to do, he will never stop antagonizing me.' She swung on the back of horse, trying to mimic the motions that Koji had just gone through. 'If I recall, horse riding is incredibly uncomfortable.' 

"Ya, Ya!" Koji spurred his horse after the bandits that had begun riding and they started the gallop back to the bandits' hide-out on Mount Reikaku. Emily held onto Koji's waist, as not to fall off. 'This is the most ridiculous decision I have ever made.'

"So did you live in da village?" Koji called back to her. Emily remained silent. 'Why should I have to respond to his stupid question? It should have been obvious that I was not originally from that village.'

"Still not talkin'? You're gonna hafta sooner or later." Koji said, smiling. "But it's okay for now." He turned back to face the front. "You're gonna have loads of fun wit us. You get loads of stuff." 

Emily rolled her eyes. 'I have joined an illegal association that takes pleasure in stealing entities that do not belong to them. Brilliant. Perhaps I should have attempted to pretend to be another priestess from another world. They could have believed that. At least I would not have had to deal with intellects that rival Tiffany's.'

She looked at the men on the horses around her. 'However, I might have had to endure a harsher encounter than this one, if I had continued to wear the female apparel.' She sighed. 'Hopefully, they will ignorant enough to believe my disguise.'

Soon, the bandits stopped outside a fortress, and each dismounted from their steeds and proceeded to put them away in a stone stable that was located to the side of the huge estate. Emily watched with a bored expression, despite the fact that she was slightly intrigued by the whole affair. She watched from outside the stable as the bandits filtered out with their bags of stolen goods, moving through the doorway. Koji came out and beckoned for Emily to follow him.

"Come on, Ami. I'll introduce ya to the rest of the guys, okay?" She followed the bandit into the stone fortress. 'I commend their ability to construct large stone structures. This building is well designed and built.' Koji noticed her wandering eyes and added in his own commentary.

"Wonder, isn't it? The old boss and his buddies, they built it." He smiled, "They put a lot of hard work into this place." Koji turned down a hallway that lead to a dining area. "This is da dining area, it's where we all eat." Emily regarded the place with cold indifference. 'I assume this means that I cannot eat on my own.' Clearly, she was the youngest one there, with the other men in their later teens, twenties, and early thirties. 

"Hey Koji, who's the little brat you got there?" one of the older men shouted to him. 

Koji grinned. "Who, him?" He pointed at Emily. "Oh, he's a new guy. I picked him up in da last village we raided. He didn't see like he was doin' anything, so I took him with me."

Some of the guys smirked. "So you suddenly decided that you could just bring someone new in?"

"I'm da boss, ain't I? That's what Genro and you guys decided." 

"So you decided to adopt a little brat that's gonna be no fun to baby sit?"

Koji nodded. "Ya. Ya gotta problem wit dat?"

The guys grumbled to each other but no one seemed to want to argue. Koji was, after all, the boss when Tasuki was away being a Suzaku warrior. They turned back to their meals, determined to ignore him. Emily glared at their backs. 'They do not have faith in my abilities.'

Koji turned to Emily. "Ami, I gotta go deal with somethin' that's come up. You stay here and eat somethin'." Emily nodded as Koji turned around and left. Then she walked over to where the cook was serving some form of stew. Emily gestured that she would like some of the stew but the cook smiled evilly.

"Ya want some food, do ya? Well, you're just a little kid. Ya don't need that much food, so ya can either prove you're worthy of some food, or ya starve. Take ya pick." The other bandits got up from their tables and stood behind her, all saying some variation of the phrase, "Yeah, prove yourself."

Emily turned around and saw them all standing there. 'The odds are not in my favor. They are all more powerful, practiced and more in number than I am. This could prove difficult.' She slowly backed away from the cook and the rest of them, but they followed her. Soon she was up against the wall. 

"You've got no where to go, little boy." She raised an eyebrow. 'I have no where to go? I don't believe so.' She put a foot against the wall. 'Typical male intellect. Let us corner the least defensive and least powerful person in the vicinity and laugh at her. Next one of them will make the suggestion of having a battle royale, thirty-five against one.'

One of the guys, sure enough shouted, "Hey, let's see how well the little kid can defend himself against all of us."

"Yeah! That sounds like fun!" They started laughing and closing in on her when Emily went into action. She pushed off the wall and held her fists out to her sides, knocking the first two men in front of her in their stomachs, causing them to fall to the floor. Somersaulting over their bodies, she twisted around and faced the other thirty-three that were left. 

Four came at her at once, swinging fists. She caught the first one with her leg, twisting it around his arm and then used him as a brace as she lifted her other foot to catch him in the chest. Pushing off his chest, she flipped, kicking another in the head. She blocked the other two with her arms and did a mid-air split, knocking them out.

She landed and looked at the others. 'Twenty-nine idiots to deal with before I am done.' Turning around, she noticed that they were in a circle around her. Simultaneously, ten of them dove toward her at the same time. She jumped up at the last moment, and landed on the pig pile of men who had managed to knock themselves out on impact. 

'For older, wiser men, they certainly keep it well hidden. Only nineteen left. I wonder how long until one of them comes to the conclusion that they cannot beat my ninja martial arts skills I was taught. My sensei was the best that there was from her world.' 

A couple more came after her and she jumped into the air again, this time, hanging there for a few seconds before stretching her legs. 'Of course, there are a few stances that she never taught me that I acquired from teachers on the NMN, such as the Trinity kick.' 

Now some of the men were backing off. One shouted, "Wha-what kind of martial arts was that? She was hanging in the air, for several seconds. How'd she do that?" Little did they know, Koji was watching from the entrance.

'That new boy's pretty tough. I wonder where he's from. He must've had somethin' happen to him when he was younger to make him so quiet all the time.' He thought for a moment. 'Maybe I can teach him what he needs ta know. The guys aren't gonna like him, the way he beat them up.'

He watched as Emily quickly disarmed another five of the bandits. 'This kid's sure had a bunch of training. I'll take him wit us to da festival, maybe he'll talk to us or somethin'. Who knows?' he turned back as Emily punched the last bandit into unconciousness. 'Wow. Ami did all of dat? That's some kid. He could go into da combat contests.'

Koji stepped into the room. "Where'd ya learn to fight like dat? Dose moves ain't like nothin' I've seen before."

Emily, once again remained silent. 'I have no need to respond to their useless questions. They are pointless. Even if told them, they would not be able to understand the concept of the NMN and inter-world educations.' She crossed her arms and stood in front of the only two conscious bandits in the fortress.

"Hey, I asked you a question, aren't you going to answer it?" Koji was getting a bit irritated. "Why aren't you talking? We know you can talk. You told us your name was Ami, so you hafta be able to talk."

Emily thought for a moment before added cruelly, "I do not believe that I 'gotta' reply to anyone with a lower intelligence than a speck of dust." She looked at Koji, who was clenching his teeth, but she chose not to say anything to him. 

"Oh, so ya think it's okay to just make fun of me, hun, is dat it? Do ya have a problem wit me or somethin'?" Emily glared at him and blurred right next to him, whipping her leg up so that it was millimeters away from his face. "Well, that's okay. If ya want to make fun of me, I don't have any problems with dat."

Emily walked away, down the hallway. 'I need to rid myself of these idiots for some time.' She walked to the end of the hallway, where there was a window. Jumping out of the window, she grabbed a tree branch and swung onto it. She rested her back against the tree trunk and closed her eyes.

'Brian, Alexis, I hope that you had less intelligence-lowering experiences.' 

Koji stood still, thinking. 'So the Ami's kid's got some problems. Dat's okay, cause, don't we all? I'll bring him to da festival when we go to meet Genro.'  Koji started laughing. 'Boy, he showed me. That was funny. I haven't been dat threatened for a long time.'

'It wasn't nice of him to make fun of me like dat, but it looks like he can hold his own.' Koji went down the hallway and looked out of the window. He saw Emily sitting in the tree. 'Wonder where he came from. He sure can fight.'

Emily could sense a pair of eyes on her, but decided that he wasn't a threat. 'I will depart tonight, after those idiots have gone to sleep. I will be able to steal more than enough food and clothes to last me until I reach some more civilized organization.'

'Brian, Alexis. I will find you.'

* * * * * 

Alexis crept around the capital city of Konan. 'Wow. It's just like I imagined it. I hope that Bri and Emi got here okay.' He was still dressed in the Academy uniform and his cap, but he was small enough that no one really noticed him. 'Why does this feel so familiar, like I've seen it before?' 

All around, the city buzzed with anticipation for the festival that was coming. Alexis was bewildered by all the action that was occurring around him. He noticed a sign that he tried to read. 'Shoot! I can't read Chinese! Oh well.' He looked around for someone who could read the sign to him. He saw a man with orange hair pass by.

"Hey, mister! Can you tell me what this says, please?" he tugged on the bottom of the man's black coat. "You've got the coolest hair in the world! It's so orange! What dye did you use?" Unfortunately, he was still only in his fourth year of school, so they hadn't taught the Traveling students about blending in. So, needless to say, the man gave the kid a long stare.

"Um..okay kid. So you want to what the sign says? Can't you read?" He glared at Alexis, who thought fast on his feet. Alexis immediately let tears swell in his eyes and started crying. "I'm sorry! I can't read because I'm dyslexic!" He had forgotten that the term dyslexic hadn't been invented yet.

The man with the orange hair began to panic. "Kid! Don't cry! I don't know what the 'dis-lecks-ick' thing is that you're complaining about, but I'll read you the sign. Just stop crying."  Alexis immediately stopped his tears a nd smiled. "Okay-dokey!"

"It says that there's a star-gazing festival starting tonight and that the priestess will be coming for the visit." The man smirked. "There. I read it, are you happy now?"

Alexis nodded. "Thanks a lot mister!" He turned to walk away, but a strong gust of wind whipped his hat off his head and tossed it back at the man. Alexis turned around and the man handed him his hat. "Here's your hat…" the man trailed off. "Chiriko? Hey, Chiriko, what's up? What did you do to your hair? Why are you wearing weird clothes like Miaka and why do you seem shorter? "

Alexis grew quickly alarmed. "I'm not Chiriko. You must be thinking of someone else!" He smiled, grabbed his hat and started running as far away from the man as he could. 'Gees, what's the matter with this guy. I must look like someone he knows.' 

"Hey! Chiriko! Come back! Don't you recognize me? It's me! Tasuki! The one with the fan! Come on, Chiriko! I was just kidding about the haircut! Come back!" The man, or more correctly now called, Tasuki, started chasing Alexis.

"I'm not Chiriko!" Alexis ran down an alley, and Tasuki ran right by him, calling out "Chiriko? Where'd you go? I just wanted to talk to you for a bit, okay?" Alexis watched as the weird orange-headed man continued to run through the people preparing for the festival. 'At least the weirdo's going to have trouble finding me in all the people. So now I can have some fun. A festival, huh? That's so cool!' He walked out of the alley, looking both ways to make sure it was safe and weirdo-free. 'Alright! Fun! Too bad Emi and Brian aren't here to have fun too!' 

Alexis skipped out, making sure that his hat was tight on his head, prepared to have a little fun before starting to look for the twins.

* * * * *

Brian woke up. Groggily he opened his eyes and prepared to whisper to Emily, like he always did when he was home. But the sight that met his eyes was not something he expected. He saw a wooden floor, with a simple stone fireplace, a wooden table and as far as he could see, a lack of electrical equipment. 

"AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Mitsukake, Shoka, and Shoka's parents came in from outside, where they had been tending the garden, to see what was wrong. Brian was sitting there, calmly on the bed. Mitsukake immediately walked over to the bed and held a hand over Brian's eyes. "What is the matter?"

"Nothing's the problem. I just had to let out a random scream because there's no NMN and no internet. There's no hacking systems either. This is a problem because I live for hacking. Ever since I got my legs busted up I've lived to hack into illegal systems. So of course, I would need to let out a scream of extreme culture shock. But nothing's wrong. NOTHING IS WRONG! NOBODY IS PANICKING!"

Shoka's parents looked at each other worriedly. "Are those a type of food that you need?"

Brian smacked his head. 'It's okay. Just calm down. It's okay. It's just ancient China. They don't have electricity, but it's okay. There's no need to panic. Don't get mad at them, they don't know what it is." "No. It's a type of connection over a system. The NMN is the Noir Marché Network, or the illegal hacking connection for Traveling hackers."

They all gave him blank looks. 'Okay. Maybe now I can panic…not that I was panicking before.' Then Mitsukake handed him a package wrapped in cloth. "Shoka found this near where we found you. Perhaps it might be this NMN or internet that you speak of." 

Brian quickly opened the folds of the fabric, and sitting in his lap, was his IndivdiCom. "I don't believe it. It came with me." He started it up and all his files were indeed there. In fact, it was apparently connected to the NMN as well. A pop-up for a chat room came up. It was Ryan and John, attempting to communicate. Mitsukake asked if Shoka's parents would take Shoka outside for a bit, so that he could talk to the 'stranger'. Brian was too busy talking to Ryan and John to notice this.

**dudetinageturtlz4kul:** hey brian! wat's going on, man?

**hkrxtreme712: **yeah. me and john were getting worried

**BRI5t4r1:** sorry you guys. you'll never guess what just happened to me.

**hkrxtreme712:** u trvld 2 sum wrld dat has no master, rite?

**BRI5t4r1:** yeah! how did you guys know about that? we only just got here, practically!

**dudetinageturtlz4kul:** well, dude, we r like, hkrs. we du no how 2 hck n2 traveling records frum da gov

**hkrxtreme712:** so where'd u go?

**BRI5t4r1:** you won't believe it, but i think i''m in one of the 4n1m3 worlds

**dudetinageturtlz4kul:** get rid of da no.s dude. we no dat thair anime worlds

**hkrxtreme712:** so which 1?

**BRI5t4r1:** i think it's the universe of the four gods

**BRI5t4r1:** don't tell anyone, okay?

**hkrxtreme712:** sure thing

**dudetinageturtlz4kul:** but dude, we gotta tell u—stuff's not good ova here

**BRI5t4r1:** what do you mean? is something happening with Traveling?

**hkrxtreme712:** yeah. the tiffany chick's got sum prblms her family's takin ova

**dudetinageturtlz4kul:** basclly, she said dat they r goin 2 do another black era thing

**BRI5t4r1:** another dark era? they're reopening all the portals? are they insane?

**hkrxtreme712:** exactly wat we were thinking

**BRI5t4r1:** listen guys, i have to go. i''ll talk with you later, okay?

Brian shut the computer off. 'I have to find Emi and Alexis really soon. Is this what the dreams were all about? Well, too late to worry about that. We have to get Alexis to bring us back home. Besides, I'm going to miss Sailor Moon!' 

"You are from Miaka's world, aren't you?" Mitsukake's questions knocked Brian out of his thoughts. 'How do I explain this?'

"Um…sort of, but not really. I'm from a world that's like…Miaka's world." Brian prayed to the god of semi-liars. 'God, please, let that be her name…it was Miaka, right? Okay…I'm good to go.' Then he asked, "Hey, what's your face…Mix-sake. Have you seen any girl that looks like me? Or a little boy with light hair? They would have both been dressed in weird clothes like me."

"Not around here, no." The man Brian had named 'Mix-sake' looked thoughtful. "A girl like you, with white hair? And a boy with light hair? Dressed in clothes from your world? You might be able to find them at the Festival tonight."

"Festival? There's a festival?" Brian thought for a moment. "Hey, do you think I'll be able to find girls there?"

"You might be able to find your female friend if you go to the festival."

"No. Will I be able to find girls?"

"Yes, you might be able to find the girl you are looking for."

"No nonononono. Girls, as in girls!"

Mitsukake was becoming increasingly confused. "Yes, you will find girls, there."

"Will they be girls?"

"Yes? A girl is a girl?" Mitsukake tried to change the subject slightly. "I am willing to bring you, along with Shoka and her family to the festival tonight. If you want to come along, that would fine. Then, once in the city, you can search for your friends."

Brian nodded. "Yeah, but how am I going to get there? My legs are paralyzed, there's no way that I can stay on a horse with my legs out."

"But I healed your legs. You should be able to walk around soon." Mitsukake added, "I would suggest that you work on moving around slowly until we leave for the festival." Then he left to go talk to Shoka's family, leaving Brian to think about what he had just said. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and went to put them on the ground.

"Well, here goes nothing." He put a little weight on each leg and found that he could stand. His eyes widened in surprise as he found himself able to walk the short distance across the room and back. He jumped into the air, only to land a little clumsily. "Yes! Brian Miller is back in the walking world! Everybody, halleluiah! Hall-e-lu-iah! Hall-e-lu-iah!" Brian started dancing around the room, gaining his strength back.

Shoka's mother came in. "It's good to see you up. Would you like some more appropriate clothing to wear to the festival?"

Brian stopped dancing to look at the clothes that the woman was offering him and the cloths that he was wearing. "Um…okay? But I got one thing: can they be black and gold trim? That's the only cool outfit that would be cool enough to be…um…cool?"

"I'm sorry. I have red garmets that you may wear, they have gold embroidery on them. I am sorry to disappoint you."

"That's okay. Red is cool too, because aren't all the cool guys in red?" Brian named them off, "Spiderman, Daredevil…Santa Clause….um…Clifford….um…um….Batman! No wait…he's black…." He shook his head. "Never mind! Red is a cool color too! Let me see that red-thingy-mobobby!"

Brian started putting on the clothes. 'I'll bring my IndividiCom with me, maybe I can get a DNA trace on Emi from the computer, but I doubt it.' Barely an hour later, "Mix-sake" was riding with "Brai" hanging onto his waist and the IndiviCom for dear life.

"I HATE HORSES! THEY'RE NEARLY AS BAD AS CAMELS! NO TAKE THAT BACK…CAMELS ARE A LOT BETTER!" 

Mitsukake sighed and Tama meowed. "Tama, I have a feeling this will be a long ride." Shoka and her parents followed on another horse, hoping to arrive in the capital city as the sun would be setting, so they could enjoy the festivities.

* * * * *

Emily opened her eyes from her "period of isolation from the idiots and therefore, a time of personal salvation" because there was a commotion going on below in the courtyard. Apparently, the bandits were packing up their horses and getting ready for a journey.

"Hey! Brat! The boss says you have to get ready to go!" One of the big men called out to her. She gave him a cold stare before rolling out of the tree and landing on the ground. 'Idiots. I will go as a please. I do not need some 'boss' requiring me to do anything.'

Koji came out. "Ami, we're goin' to da festival, so ya gonna to come wit us?" She regarded him coldly. "It'll be tons of fun, and there's gonna be tons of girls your age. So why not?" 

"What festival?" Emily inquired. 'Perhaps, if this festival is located near a populated area, it may be possible for me to locate Brian and Alexis.' 

"I'll tell ya on da way there." Koji smiled but his smile faded when Emily raised an eyebrow. "Or I can tell ya now. Basc'lly der was this chick, da Priestess of Suzaku and she came and saved this place. Our old boss, Genro, he went to go on adventures wit' her and her friends. We're goin' because Genro's gonna be there and the emperor invited us himself because we helped him out a lot in da war."

Emily nodded. "Fine. I will attend." She stood, with her arms crossed while the rest of the bandits readied their horses and prepared supplies for the short journey to the capital of Konan. Emily got stuck behind Koji again, on the account that none of the other bandits felt like being kind to her since the earlier incident. 

They started riding. As they rode, Koji turned around slightly to ask her, "Hey, every year's, there's dis contest for fighters. Ya wanna do it? It'll be fun for you, specially cause you're so good. If ya wanna do it, I'll sponser ya cause it costs money to do it."

She was silent for a moment then remembered. 'Brian and Alexis both enjoy those violent video games. Perhaps, if they are attending this festival as well, then I will be able to locate them with more ease because they will be drawn to the natural horrors of the fights.' She sighed. "So be it."

Koji grinned and turned back all the way to the front. "Ya gonna have a good time Ami. Me and the guys will show ya how to have a little fun in the city. Don'cha worry."

'Yes.' Emily thought to herself. 'I will have an entertaining time in the city at the festival, but without you or any of your unintelligent minions. All I must do is locate Brian and Alexis, reconvine with them and then discuss what our best options are for movement.'

* * * * *

Alexis walked around with a huge smile on his face. He'd been wandering around for a couple of hours now and was happier than a shopper-holic in the Mall of America. (Well, probably not that happy on the account that no one can have that sort of energy for that sort of amount of time and besides, the shopper-holic has probably already been the Mall of America several times, and it's probably just another mall to go to, so actually, that was probably a very bad metaphor to use then, but then I'm probably using probably too much too, but anyway, the kid was friggin' happy, okay?) 

"Yay! This is soo cool! It looks just like ancient China—" A strange man with blue hair popped out of nowhere and said, "Everyone says that when they get here, ya know?" Then he disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. Alexis had a scared look on his face. "Okay, maybe it's not so cool, because that guy was freaky, like the orange-headed weirdo that was following me." He looked up at the darkening skies. "I wonder if Emi and Bri are having as much fun as I am!"

(Brian has arrived at the capital of Konan, and currently suffering from being at the mercy of a horse who was insulted at being insulted by being made inferior to a camel. Emily arrived a little earlier and is currently trailing around after Koji because the rest of the bandits won't let her slip away. Yeah, sure they're having loads of fun. The Creator would be laughing at them.)

He continued on his tour of the city. He found another sign and tried to read it. After the third or fourth or fifteenth sign that he found, he was able to start reading the local language. 'Either this means that there's going to be an attack on the city by giant jelly donuts, or there's a martial arts competition in the front courtyard of the palace.' Alexis stopped for a moment. 'Martial arts…hey, maybe Emi and Bri will show up for that too! Then I can watch a cool fight, get free food and look for my friends, all with little effort! All right!' 

Alexis came up to a vendor who was selling some sort of sugary substance in a liquid. He tugged on the skirt of the woman behind the stall. He immediately went into the "Oliver" impression. Sniffing he looked at her with puppy dog eyes. "'Scuse me…but do you have anything that you could give me to eat, please?" The woman looked down at the little boy and unfortunately, for Alexis, was apparently the "Miss Hannigan" type of lady.

"Unless you've got money stashed away in those huge eyes of yours, you can push off. Go beg someone else for food, and if you're going to beg, at least do it in clothes that are poorly made. Whatever type of ceremonial robes they are, you would be able to buy those at a high price, so you should have the money, unless you're a thief, and we don't serve thieves."

Alexis's eyes widened, "But you just served a bandit! Isn't that a type of thief?"

"Not in my book. These are strong warriors that helped his majesty the emperor in the battle against Kutou several years ago. So scram. Go with your stupid little posse."

He was about to say, "But I don't associate with posses," when he caught the gleam in her eye and decided that it wasn't worth it to argue. He bowed and ran away as fast as he could. 'Okay, scratch the free food bit. But I can get into the fights, can't I?'

Looking around, he saw that there were guards standing outside the palace walls, checking people as they went inside. Alexis attempted to slip by them but a guard caught him by the scruff of his collar. "Where do you think you're going, little kid?"

"Um…to watch the matches?" Alexis smiled for a moment. 

"Only people invited by the emperor and who can pay for their own ticket can go in. You don't like you have either." The guard smirked at him. 

"Who was invited by the emperor?"

"The sponsors of the fighters, the Suzaku warriors, Lord Tamahome, Lord Tasuki, Lord Chichiri, Lord Mitsukake, Lord Nuriko, Lord Chiriko, their friends and families, Lady Miaka, and anyone who these people choose to invite."

Alexis thought fast. "Then unhand me, I am allowed to pass. I am Chiriko! The Suzaku warrior!"

The guard and his friends laughed. "Nah, kid. You're not Lord Chiriko. Lord Chiriko has this hairstyle that is quite unique, and besides, you look too stupid to be Lord Chiriko."

Just then a certain orange-haired weirdo came running toward the palace. "Chiriko! I found you! I lost you after you played that trick on me!" The guards snapped to attention, still holding Alexis by the scruff of his school uniform. "Hey, Chiriko, why are the guards holding you like that? Did you get into trouble or something?"

Alexis quickly thought up a plan. "They wouldn't believe me when I said that I was Chiriko and refused to allow me passage." He frowned and crossed his arms. 

Tasuki quickly glared at the guards. "Hey, let him go. He's allowed to go to, isn't he?" The guards nodded frantically. "Then let him go. Now." Alexis was dropped into the dirt. "You okay, Chiriko?"

"Yeah, thanks…." Alexis scrambled for his name. "..Tasuki." 

Tasuki smiled, showing off his fangs. "No problem. So let's go." The two waltzed through the gate, Alexis sticking out his tongue at the guards as he went past. As soon as they were in Tasuki turned to him and smiled. "It's been a while, hasn't it Chiriko. Last time I heard, you were in the government."

Alexis rolled his eyes. "I'm not Chiriko. Leave me alone."

Tasuki's mouth dropped open. "But…but you just said that you were and the guards…"

"Thanks for the help, but I'm not Chiriko. I have no idea who the guy is, except that he's one of the Suzaku warriors. I know I'm in Konan, but I have no idea where that is. This is like a complete déja-vous experience for me and you're not part of it, so bye!" He turned and ran along the inside of the walls and quickly climbed a tree. Alexis watched as the orange-haired weirdo ran by underneath it, calling, "Chiriko? What do you mean? Is this all a joke?" 

Alexis giggled. "He's really stupid. I wonder which warrior of the Suzaku group he was. He must have been the one that would have been called Stupid Spice." He jumped out of the tree and started walking toward the latern-lit court yard where there were people gathering. 

There was a platform where there were nine chairs on it. In front of this platform, was an open space. On either side of the space, across from each other, were platforms, raised for spectators to see, which was slowly filling up. There were roped off sections that were clearly the best seats in the house. Alexis walked around the area, watching the people find their seats.

"This is cool. This looks like a cross between Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; a wrestling tournament and the results of a "Style-It!" Barbie Hair Salon. These people have an obsession with hair dye. He stood behind a large red pillar and looked at some people that were gathering on the platform. There seemed to be the emperor, his wife and son, as well as a really tall man, a man with short purple hair, and a couple. The girl had brown hair and boy, black. Soon after, the man with blue hair from earlier arrived with a young teenager in tow.

All of a sudden, Alexis heard a "Chiriko! Chiriko, let me talk to you for a minute!" Alexis turned around and saw Tasuki racing toward him. "What's the matter with you? You possessed or something?" Alexis saw no choice, but to run as fast as he could. 

'I'm not going to bother to tell him that I'm not Chiriko. He seems to think that I am.' So Alexis just ran. He raced down the border of the seating for the fights. He turned a corner at the end, and raced past the huge platform with all the important people on it. As Tasuki raced past, the girl with the brown hair called out:

"Tasuki! Tasuki, where are you going in such a hurry? You'll miss the start of the fight!" She smiled.

Tasuki called back. "Oh, hey Miaka! I'm chasing Chiriko because he's acting a little weird and I want to talk to him." Then the young teenager with the stiff ponytail leaned out behind the back of the platform with a puzzled look on his face. 

"But Tasuki, I'm right here." The rest of the people on the platform came out into the little passageway behind the platform. 

"Yeah, Chiriko's been with us the whole time, ya know?" Chichiri nodded. "The person you were chasing must've been someone else, ya know?"

Tasuki looked shocked. "What do you mean, Chiriko's been with you the whole time? I saw him in the city, earlier!"

"Maybe you saw someone who looked like Chiriko. That would explain why he was acting funny," Nuriko suggested. "If anyone wore that hairstyle of his, it's probable that anyone would be able to pass of as him!" Nuriko laughed.

Tasuki looked back in the direction that Alexis was running. "Well he was dressed kinda funny too, sort of like Miaka's funny clothes."

Everyone stopped to look at the former-bandit. The emperor called out "Guards! Stop that child!" 

'Awww, man. This is bad. Very bad!' Alexis ran into a whole contingent of guards. 'Even my Kung-fu skills won't help me out here and I don't have my short swords. Darn it!' He stopped running and looked up at the guards who grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and carried him back to the group.

"Let me go! I'm not Chiriko! Let me go! I didn't do anything!" He tried one last desperate measure, "I'll use the magic word if you don't let me go!" But then he was dropped in a semi-circle of the important people. He looked up and everyone gasped.

"He looks like Chiriko, just younger!"

"And his clothes are like Miaka's clothes, ya know?"

"Tasuki, it's okay. You're not such an idiot. I can see how you mistook him."

"Tamahome…." 

The teenage boy knelt down and looked at Alexis. Alexis was getting really spooked. Here was an almost mirror reflection of himself, except, he looked older and more ancient Chinese-ish. Chiriko looked at Alexis and his eyes widened. 

"Akira, is that you?"

* *  * * *

Brian found himself in the middle of a busy oriental crowd having a good time at the festival. On his back he had his IndividiCom in his satchel. 'Now all I have to do is find an alley and run a search on Emily's DNA code.' He walked around forever until he found an alleyway to conduct his search. (This always happens to one of the heroes in the story; they search for an alleyway either to hide in, change costumes in or just chill in, but there are always couples making out in the dark alleyways. Either that, or garbage bins that smell, or a bunch of the enemy hiding out with machine guns. Well, it does not happen to every main character…alright, it hardly ever happens to anyone.)

'All right, finally an alleyway without people who need to get a room!' He sat down and pulled out his IndividiCom, unwrapped it from the satchel and went into Find-a-Lot. As his own program, he designed it to trace for DNA and matched it with the government's archives. 

'C'mon Find-a-Lot. Good boy…give me…RESULTS!' The computer continued to sit there and blink "searching….". Brian groaned. "Yes, I know you're searching, but could you move a little faster?" As if to spite him, the computer seemed to go even slower than before. Brian glared at his computer and finally, the search yielded one result.

"Yes!" He searched through the coding and found Emily's name. "It says that she's within the city of Konan." He was about to close the computer when it suddenly popped up with two more results.

"What the hell? Find-a-Lot, what are you doing?" Then he remembered. "Oh, that's right. I had Emi put Alexis' DNA code in the computer in case of an emergency…that was ages ago though." Brian scrolled through the code and found Alexis' name, but under Alexis' name was also Akira. And he scrolled down a little farther and found another strange name, "Chiriko."

"Who are Chiriko and Akira? Find-a-Lot is saying that there's only three results total: Emi, Alexis, Akira and Chiriko. That's four, not three…unless Chiriko or Akira is a false name that Emi or Alexis is going by. It's got to be Alexis because Find-a-Lot knows Emily."

Brian sat in his alleyway, free from any couples, garbage bins or men with machine guns, puzzled at what the computer was telling him. "It must be this heat and the new location." He was sitting there when a loud voice called out:

"Do you have martial arts skills? Well, here's the chance to show your skills off to his majesty, the emperor and the upper-class of Konan! Enter the martial arts competition! There are still a few places available for anyone who wishes to participate!"

Brian snapped out of his puzzlement, shut off the IndividiCom and wrapped it in the satchel. 'That sounds cool. I wish I could join in…' Then he realized something. 'Wait a minute…I can walk! I can join in! Emi and Alexis would understand, right? Yeah. I'm sure they'd do the same thing in my place, right?' 

A little mental image of Emily being offered the same choice, and coldly refusing went through his mind, followed by one with Emily giving him a murderous glance when she discovered that he was fooling around instead of attempting to connect with the others. Brian grimaced. 'Okay, well, Alexis would understand, and he'd do the same thing in my place. So I'm all set. Emi wouldn't kill me…I'm pretty sure she wouldn't kill me.'

So Brian walked over to the man and asked, "So how do you sign up?" The man looked at him and laughed. 

"What, a kid like you? You can fight? The sign-up is in that building over there," he pointed, "but I wouldn't actually sign up unless you want to get killed." He laughed as Brian smiled and shrugged. 

"Well, I'm not that great, but wouldn't it be funny if I won anything?" He walked casually over to the building. Inside there was a short line of tough looking men. 'Gee. These look like they could be pro-wrestlers or something. They'd all have names like: Masher, Iron Fist, or maybe something like Uri the Barbarian if they were feeling creative.'

Once the line had disappeared, Brian was the last one. He stepped up and the man behind the counter asked, "What is your specialty, and what would you like your fighting name to be?"

Brian answered promptly with some information that he'd used on NMN simulations of fights. "Kung-Fu and I'd like to be called F14M3M45T3R-2125. Make sure that you get the 1 on the L and the hyphen between the R and the 2125."

The man with the pen stopped writing for a moment and gave Brian a puzzled look. "I am sorry sir, but could you pick another name than," he screwed up his eyes trying to read what he had written, "Fwon-form-treem-four-five-te-threer-hyphon-twon-twenty-five? It is too long." Brian sweat-dropped and sighed.

"Fine. Call me the Silent Bandit."

"Sorry sir, but that name is already taken by another fighter." Brian raised an eyebrow, "What?"

"Sorry sir, but that name was given to another fighter who registered earlier, would you like to pick another?"

* Flash Back *

Emily stood before the registry counter with Koji. The man looked up at Koji and asked, "what's your specialty and what would you like your fighting name to be?"

Koji turned to face Emily, who was now wearing a mask over her face and eyes. "Hey, what's dat fightin' style of yours called?" She remained silent so Koji turned back to the man and said, "I don't think he's got one. Call him da Silent Bandit." 

The clerk startled, "Oh, are you from Mount Reikaku? The legendary bandits that helped his highness during the war?"

Koji grinned, "Dat's us. Dis here's the newest member. Wanted to prove himself to da rest of the guys." The clerk nodded.

Then the clerk pointed to the door on the side of the room and they both walked through. Inside was a waiting room, where many other fighters were already gathered. Koji turned to Emily, "I'm gonna go get a seat with da guys. You're gonna be alright here Ami?"

Emily gave him a cold stare and Koji smiled before heading out the door.

* End Flash Back *

Brian groaned again. "You mean Samurai X is taken as well?" The clerk nodded. "Excuse me, sir, but are you from a foreign country?"

Brian ignored this and rubbed his temples before coming up with an idea. He told the clerk very slowly, "Okay. How about this. You put my name as Silent Bandit, but you but the number two next to the end of it, okay? So I'm the second Silent Bandit."

The clerk forced a smile and carefully nodded his head. 'This boy is an absolute lunatic.'  But out loud he said, "That is fine sir. Please go through the door over there and on the other side is a waiting room. You will wait there until another official gives you instructions." Brian nodded.

"Thanks, man. That's cool." He walked through the door and clerk then bent his head, and scribbled out "Silent Bandit 2" and wrote something else. 'There. That should suit him well.' He closed the book with the names and reported to the people in charge of arranging the actual fights.

Brian walked through the door and found himself in a room full of lots of people. 'The collective IQ in here must be somewhere in the fifties.' He stood in the back, looking around. He saw a person leaning against the back wall, like him, that looked about his height. 

'It wouldn't be Emi? Would it?' He looked in the chest area of the person. 'Nope. That's not Emi. That's got to be a guy. Too flat to be Emi.' Brian faced front as an official came out. 

"Please listen to us. We have divided you into groups of ten, according to the order that you registered in. Within the group, you will paired randomly. The first group: Black Hand Chan, Wo-Ping, Kick Master Yen…" Brian phased out until the announcer came to:

"If we did not call your name, you are in the last group, as you just completed registration. We ask that you remain in here unless you are one of the ten in the group that is currently fighting. Thank you for your cooperation." 

Brian sat on the edge of the floor. He didn't dare bring out the InidividCom, but he sat there and fingered the two knives in either one of his pockets. 'I haven't had the chance to use these in years. I hope I remember how to use them.' Before he had left Mitsukake's place, he had tried out some of his martial arts on a tree. The tree didn't look too good after that. 

'This is going to be a while.' He thought, while fixing a mask over his face and hair. 'There. Now I really look like a silent bandit.'

* * * * * 

"Chiriko, do you know this boy?" Hotohori looked down at the two of them. All the other Suzaku warriors started staring at Alexis. At this point, even a talented child, boosted several grades ahead in martial arts and Traveling, would get unnerved, so Alexis started to tear up.

"I'm not Akira! I'm not Chiriko! I'm Alexis! A-lex-is!" Tears started to fall out of his eyes. "Why can't you people understand that?!" Then he put his face in his hands. 

Just then, an official came to Hotohori and said, "Your majesty, the competitions are about to begin, we are just waiting for you to take your seats." Hotohori nodded. "Of course, but we have a little dilemma here."

Chiriko smiled at the emperor. "It's okay, your highness. I have it under control."

"Do you mind not missing the fights?" 

"It's alright, I never really like fighting all that much anyway." Chiriko smiled as the rest of the Suzaku warriors and the Priestess took their seats for the competitions. Then the teenager put an arm around Alexis. 

"We're sorry for scaring you like that. We see now that you're not Akira or Chiriko. Why don't you come watch some of the fights with us, would you like that?" He smiled, "I assume the reason you were in here was to watch the fights, am I correct?"

Alexis cracked a little smile. "You talk like someone I know."

"Really? Who do I resemble?"

Alexi's grin faded. "One of my friends that I'm trying to find. That's why I wanted to come see the fights. I thought that they would come too because they like fighting. One's a skilled fighter and the other one is the twin."

Chiriko nodded. "So you came to see if you could locate them. I understand." He lead the boy to a seat next to him. "Here, you have my seat and I'll take one beside you, alright?"

Alexis nodded. "Thanks." He got up on the seat and watched as the first fight began. "So you are Chiriko?"

"Yes. I'm one of the Suzaku Seven, and I am marked with the constellation "Chiriko", see?" He held out a foot, and Alexis saw the glowing mark there. 

"Woah! That's soo cool! Where did you get that done? I didn't know they did glow-in-the-dark tattoos back in ancient China!"

Chiriko looked puzzled, "But this isn't a tattoo, it's a symbol of a Suzaku warrior. We all have them." Then he stopped for a moment. "Did you just make a remark of 'back in ancient China'? Are you not from this country?"

Alexis grinned, now that he was starting to calm down a little. "Nope. I'm from New York. That's where I grew up. I go to the Academy of the Traveling Arts and once I started Traveling, this person came to me in this dream and told me to say "Kyuusei" if I ever got into any trouble."

Chiriko lead Alexis away from the fights and started to walk around the outer passages of the palace. "So you originate in another world, like Miaka?" Then he thought for a moment. "Kyuusei, that is Japanese for 'former home', is it not?" 

Alexis shrugged his shoulders. "Beats me. I don't know Japanese. It's a special word that she told me to say."

There was one other thing that Chiriko wanted to know. "This woman, in your dream, was she old—"

Alexis interrupted him. "No, it wasn't the oracle from the Matrix. She didn't have a bag of candy. She didn't say fortune-cookie phrases."

"That was not what I was intending to ask. I was just wondering if the lady in question was old."

"Um…no."

Chiriko looked thoughtful. "How interesting. A young woman, and 'kyuusei'. Very intriguing." Then he turned to the younger boy and asked, "Would you like to return to the fights?"

"YEAH!"

* * * * *

Emily waited for the endless tedium to cease. 'As if it was not insulting enough to force me to remain in such close encounters with inferior men, there is no source of entertainment.' Then the officiator entered the room and the remaining fighters stood. Emily saw one other small fighter that was bigger than her, but smaller than "Smasher", "Iron Fist" and "Ugh the Barbarian". 

"You are the last group of fighters. Please, proceed this way." They followed the little clerk man and waited patiently in a dark passageway to the side of the entrance to the courtyard. The officiator turned around. "Please stop here. We will send you out, randomly in pairs and announce you to his highness. I would like you and you," he pointed at two fighters, "to be the first pair. Please follow me. Everyone else, wait here."

The two fighters followed him out while the remaining eight waited around. Minutes passed and soon, the officiator came back for the third and fourth fighters. Followed by the other four. The only two that remained were Emily and the other boy. 

'I believe that we are paired up. If Brian did not sufferer from lower paralysis, I would suspect this of being him. Perhaps it is him, and he was able to make an incredible recovery, but highly doubtful.' She crossed her arms and felt the ninja stars under her sleeves, but attached to her arm bands. 'If I need to use these, I will. In order to find Brian and Alexis, I must prove myself in this battle. If I fall unconscious, they may wish to examine me, and then my identity is destroyed.'

Then the officiator came back and beckoned the two of them. They stepped out into the courtyard to applause and cheers. Emily calmly observed the surface of the courtyard and then looked around at the crowd. She glanced at Koji and the other bandits from Mount Reikaku. Koji waved and she quickly turned around and faced the emperor.

The boy beside her was apparently going through the same motions and faced the emperor as well. An announcer, who turned out to be the clerk from the resigrty earlier, appeared and exclaimed:

"For our final exhibition of martial arts tonight, we have, from Mount Reikaku, the Silent Bandit!"

* * * * * 

Brian glared at the other fighter. "So you're the one that took the name 'Silent Bandit' before me. How interesting."

The announcer next proclaimed: "He will be fighting against the Not-so-silent Bandit from an unnamed foreign country!"

Brian was enraged. "That's some cheap trick, you little clerk! I'll get you for that! I told you it was Silent Bandit 2. You know, as if Rush Hour 2, Jaws 2 or Star Wars 2. Come on man, get your act together. That isn't even funny."

The other fighter turned to him and said in a low voice, "But the name apparently suits you. You are not quite as silent as me."

"But you're talking too! So you have no more right to the name of Silent Bandit than I do!" He yelled, getting into the other fighter's face, as the spectators in the stands all sweat-dropped.

* * * * * 

Emily pushed the other fighter away from her face. 'This is undoubtedly Brian. There is no one else who would know about those films that he mentioned. Also, no one else would possibly defend the right to a fighting name quite in that style. I should tell him that it is me, but I should test him to see if his abilities are up to par.' 

So she pretended to wipe some spit from her mask. "So fight to defend your name, child."

Brian got really mad. "You are soooooo dead!" He rushed at her and jumped into the air, aiming a kick at her head. She moved to the side quickly and sent him sprawling over her shoulder. 

'That was pitiful,' she thought within the confines of her mind. 'Granted, he has been unable to practice for years, but he was the most talented in his class.' Brian raced after her, and threw in a punch, she caught the fist, but then had to flip backwards to avoid the scissor kick he nearly planted on her stomach. 

He grinned. "Who's going to be crying mommy now, 'Silent Bandit'?" Brian did the 'o' face. "There's no way you're going to get my name, you thief!"

Emily rolled her eyes. 'There is no doubt that he is Brian. No one else would act so completely immature.'

* * * * * 

"So you are looking for your two friends, Emily and Brian?"

Alexis nodded from his seat. "They came with me when I said the word and I think they Traveled wrong."

Chiriko frowned, "You tried to explain this to me. In your world, when you go to other worlds, you have to form a mental picture in your mind and then you Travel. So you believe that they may be somewhere in this world, but because they used strange images, that they may have arrived elsewhere."

"Yup. I thought that since Emi is so responsible, that I'd find her here because she has to look for her brother. He's paralyzed from the waist down. He's amazing with the technology from my time." Alexis turned to watch more of the fight.

"Bri's so much more outgoing than Emily. Emi never talks to anyone, except me and Bri. Bri talks to pretty much anyone he meets. They're twins, so they only way you can tell them apart is the length of their hair, and the other stuff that girls have." 

Chiriko nodded. 'He misses them.' "These two fighters are quite evenly matched. Each with skills that counter-act the other."

Alexis agreed, "The one that keeps shouting is using Kung-Fu. I recognize the stances because I learned it at school. The other one's using some sort of combination of different martial arts styles. I wonder if they're going to use weapons soon. They both look like they're getting tired."

"Yes. Perhaps they will resort to their skills with weapons to determine who will win this match." Chiriko watched the match intently. 

* * * * * 

Brian was getting tired. 'This guy's got me all figured out. Every move I try to make, he manages to counter attack with something else.' He stood a slight distance away from the other fighter. 'I wish I knew what was under that mask.'

Suddenly, the other fighter took a stance. The next several seconds occurred and Brian didn't even know he was moving. His body acted on it's own accord, as if acting out of remembrance of a long forgotten action. The 'Silent Bandit' threw two ninja stars out towards him.

Quickly, Brian reached in his pockets for his two knives that he had there. He reached out with them and with two flicks of his wrists, he opened them and caught the ninja stars on them. Then he flung the ninja stars back at the other fighter, throwing his knives behind them.

The other fighter watched as the two ninja stars and two open knives came straight toward his face. Brian watched in satisfaction as the fighter appeared to tense. 'There's no way you can top that.' Then his face fell.

Surprisingly, the other fighter was not tensing out of fear, but apparently, this was just a normal feat for the other fighter. The Silent Bandit flipped upside down in the air and grabbed the ninja stars and reflected the knives with the flat side of the stars. Then sliding the ninja stars into place, the fighter grabbed the two knives out of thin air. Upon landing, he remarked. 

"That was satisfactory, but could be improved on. You need to find replacement weapons in the near future, Not-so-Silent Bandit."

Brian was getting pissed. "How did you know that move? That was specially developed by me and my twin! No one has been able to perform it since we made it up when we were little!"

"Do you not even recognize your own kin, Brian?" Emily removed her mask, revealing her purple eyes and white hair that was wrapped tightly into a bun. "You are quite out of practice, although it is surprising to see that you are able to perform as a normal human would."

Brian ran over to Emily and gave her a hug. "Emi! How'd you know it was me?" He put her down because she was giving him an evil glare.

"No one else would have attempted to defend a title such as "Silent Bandit" with such fervor. I had not completely ascertained it was you until you reflected the attack." Brian's mouth shot open. "Before you attempt to make an argument about the morality of performing such an attack if I was not certain that you could reflect it, I do not want to hear it. We must find Alexis and go home."

As if on cue, Alexis' voice rang out. "Bri! Emi! You made it here!" He got off his chair and ran to them in the middle of the courtyard. He jumped into Emily's arms. "Emi! You were so cool! I didn't know you could do stuff like Brian used to! That was amazing." He shoved his face into her shoulder then looked at the two of them. 

"Brian, why are you wearing that funky head thing? It makes you look like a cheap Hollywood mummy." Alexis giggled as Brian pulled the mask off his face. "That's better. But, wait, Bri, you can walk now…"

Brian smiled. "Yup. I got healed by that Mix-sake dude." Emily stared at him for moment. 

"You expect us to believe that Mitsukake of the Suzaku Seven would engage in such a trivial matter as your paralysis?" Brian and Alexis looked at her, not believing that she could be so cold. Emily looked at their glares and then replied, "Brian, you of all people should recognize a jest when you are faced with one."

Brian's face-faulted and Alexis sweat-dropped. "Really, Emi, you shouldn't do that. We can't tell when you're joking and when you're not." Just then the three of them realize that there were people standing around them. Brian panicked and grabbed a flashlight.

"Move along, move along. Nothing to see…nothing to seee….." He clicked the light on and off in the people's faces, like Homestar Runner. "Just move along people…." Then he stopped when everyone gave him puzzled looks. "Okay…I'll stop."

"Alexis, do you know these people?" Chiriko stood in front of the others and looked at Alexis. "Are these your companions you spoke of before, from another world?" 

Brian looked down and saw Chiriko. "Oh my god! There are TWO Alexis' running around now?!"

Emily rolled her eyes. "No, you incompetent fool, they are merely brothers."

"WHAT??!"

"She is absolutely correct."

"Taiitsukun??!"

End of Part 2.

A/n: So how was it? Let me know what you think. If you are reading this story and aren't reviewing, you have some serious issues, dude. Seriously. But anyway, I hope it met with expectations! Tune in next time when Rainbow Brite becomes gothic! Just kidding. Next time:

**Ani taen kultuke yonki nalka**: No smoke comes out of a chimney without a fire

I probably will have this done in about two weeks because next week is show week for Fiddler on the Roof, and I don't get home from school until 9:00, so I'll try to write, but it's unlikely that I'd get anything done. I'll try to have it up by next Saturday though.


	3. Ani taen kultuke yonki nalka

A/n: Well folks, I'm back. Fiddler on the Roof went really well and I'm sorry for the hiatus in my writing updates. I hope not to disappoint you. It's more of a chapter that sets up for the next several parts of the story. Anyway, here we go:

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from Fushigi Yugi, the Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, or Star Wars. I also don't claim to own Barbie or BOTOX (not like I would want to pretend that I own them).

Thank you to Ryochan8. Your reviews are more than enough to get any author inspired to writing more. I hope this isn't disappointing because it's not as good as the first parts.

Please Enjoy. If you are enjoying it, or even if you're not, please review and tell me what you think about it. Please?

**Part 3: Ani taen kultuke yonki nalka: No Smoke Comes Out Of A Chimney Without A Fire**

"Taiitsukun??!"

"Yes. It's me." She glared at Brian who was cowering behind Emily and Alexis. "What do you think you're doing you man?"

"Hiding! It's another old lady come to tell us some fortune-cookie saying and offer us candy! Emily, tell her that I've had enough scary-looking crones in my dreams to last me a life time." Brian peeked around Emily, but couldn't see Taiitsukun anywhere. "Whew. She's gone. How did you do that Emi, get her to go away without saying anything?"

He noticed that everyone was looking behind him. "What? You don't really expect me to believe you that there's some person behind me, do you?" Emily turned around and faced him. She raised an eyebrow and Alexis giggled a little. "Bri, you're an idiot!"

"I'll say that." Brian whirled around to see Taiitsukun right behind him. "I'm not here to offer you candy or tell you fortune-cookie phrases."

"When did you get over there?" He glared at her. "That was a stupid trick. Really, now that I get a good look at you, you don't look like an oracle. So there!" He stuck out a tongue. "You can't scare me, witch!"

"That's not very nice to say, ya know." Chichiri and the rest of the Suzuaku warriors sweat-dropped at Brian's quick jump from mortal fear to immature competition. "This is Taiitsukun, the one who gave us the Universe of the Four Gods scroll, ya know."

"Yes. We know." Emily snapped. "Or in any event, I am learned in this field of knowledge. I know more about your experiences than you desire to know."

Miaka looked at her with a twitching eyebrow. "You know more about our 'experiences' than we wish to know? What do you mean by that?"

Emily gave her a cold glare. "It is none of your concern, priestess." She turned back to Taiitsukun. "Do you have a purpose? Or are you merely here to be an attempt at being an intimidating figure?"

"Quiet, you little girl. You don't know anything. I was going to tell you all about Chiriko and Akira."

Brian interrupted. "Who's Akira? I ran a search on DNA traces, and Find-a-lot for Emi, Alexis and some person named Akira. I thought it was weird that it picked up Alexis, but I have no idea who this Akira is…"

"As I previously stated, this boy is Chiriko and Akira is his younger brother." Emily restated it very slowly, carefully enunciating so that Brian would be able to understand.

"But I thought that you said that Alexis was Chiriko's brother." Brian looked puzzled.

Taiitsukun rolled her eyes. "If you would just shut up for a moment, then we could explain it to you." She paused and hearing no other interjections from the peanut gallery, the wizened woman continued. "About nine or ten year ago, there was a great disturbance in the balance of the powers in the this world. There were great storms. I was observing how the warriors of Suzaku were fairing, and I noticed that one in particular was affected.

"Chiriko was about four years old, and he had just met his younger brother, Akira. Akira was almost a mirror image of the boy, but he mysteriously disappeared in one of the many strange power storms that were occurring all over this world. This Alexis here, is Akira."

Alexis looked at the old hag and then at Chiriko. "I'm his brother? His little brother? But…"

Emily set him down on the ground. "Is it that impossible to comprehend?" Alexis looked nervous, so Brian pitched in.

"You remember when you brought us here? You threw some images in our minds and shouted 'Kyuusei'. What were those images of? They were parts of here, weren't they? Parts that you didn't even know you remembered. 'Kyuusei' means 'former home', doesn't it?"

Alexis thought for a moment. "I walked around and I thought it was just deja-vu. It seemed familiar, but strange at the same time. It felt like coming home from camp after a long stay."

"How do you know what camp feels like? You've never been to a camp. You've been going to the Academy since you were a baby."

Alexis shrugged. "I don't know. Those seemed like the right words, don't yell at me. Besides, how do you know that?"

Brian smirked. "Hello? Hacker. Period."

"Yeah, does that mean that you were stalking me? Are you obsessed with me? You stalk me…you want to search me…you want to hug me…you want to—"

"STOP YOU LITTLE TWIT!" Brian glared at him. "That was completely uncalled for. Seriously. Grow up a little."

Emily rolled her eyes. "I believe that you are in no particular position to make remarks about immaturity at the moment, brother."

"Excuse me? What are you doing in this world anyway? Are you from my world? How did you get in here? You don't have the book." Miaka fired off a million and one questions

"Connectors." Alexis beamed and stuck his tongue out at Brian. "See? I told you that connectors would help us out! I just knew it. You told me that it would be a waste of time because the gates were closed off before I was born, but hah!"

Brian and Emily exchanged a look. "You want to explain Emi? So I can beat this little twerp into the ground?" Alexis caught the evil glare and ran behind Chiriko. "Can't hurt me! 'Cause you can't hurt Chiriko! Don't let them hurt me!"

Tasuki grumbled. "That little kid is such a sleaze bags, hiding behind Chiriko like that, just for protection. Honestly." He crossed his arms and shook his heads. "What is the world coming to these days?"

Tamahome came up behind him. "You said it. Especially where warriors of star constellations go around mistaking children, from other worlds, who happen to look a lot younger, in weird clothes, for existing people. You can definitely say that again."

"Hey! What is that supposed to mean? You aren't talking about me, are you?"

"What if I am? What are you going to do about it?" Tamahome put on a smug face and smirked at Tasuki. "Or are you not going to do anything because you're going to chase after some other person that looks like me?"

"That's it! I don't care if it'll make Miaka sad. You are so dead!" Everyone just ignored the cloud that suddenly erupted behind them. Nuriko turned to Hotohori. "Your highness, do you understand what they mean by connectors? I've never heard of such a thing before."

"You do recall mediums, do you not?" Emily coldly remarked. "If my memory serves me, Miaka's satchel and Yui's bow from her school outfit could be used as a connection from this world into the next. In this instance, Alexis served as the connector, as he is from this world, with the use of the word to transport him back, he was able to quickly create a connection that allowed us to Travel."

Brian scratched his head. "That's pretty smart of you Alexis, but how did you know that you were a connector? You only just learned that you're from this world and Chiriko's you're brother."

"I thought that maybe I was from another world and I had stuff left in the other world to connect me. That's why I asked you about connectors earlier. But you said no, but I was right after all." He could see Brian's eye twitch as he prepared to start the argument up again. "But I am a mature child, and I am ending this argument right now."

"You used Alexis as a medium to get from your world to here. But I'm kind of wondering why you're here at all, ya know?"

Emily sighed. "There are problems rising in our world…"

"Okay, Master Jin. Like, what do I like, have left to do? You've taught me like everything so can we just get on with it and say that I'm the new master?"

The little old man in the Buddhist monk robes shook his bald head. "I am sorry, my dear, but you still have more to learn before I can officially hand over the position to you. You need to train a little more."

Tiffany huffed. "Like what? I've done all your training! Why don't you just make me master now? You're going to die soon anyway!" She turned around and stormed out, leaving behind a little old man, shaking his head. She left the temple where she took lessons from Matrix Master Jin Minamino.

She walked into her house and slammed the door behind her. She heard her mom call out, "How was your lesson honey? Did you learn anything important today? Did you make good choices?"

"Shut up mom." Tiffany dropped her bags in the living room and turned on the television. Then she heard her father come in. She immediately turned off the television and froze on her position on the sofa. "Um…hi….dad…"

"What went wrong at the lesson today?" He asked her in a stern voice, "Did you fail again at your task?"

Tiffany slapped on a ditzy little grin and flipped around. "Well, you see, dad, he's really old and he doesn't like, know what he's, like talking about, so—"

"What did you do wrong?"

"Nothing!" She smiled quickly. "Everything is going to like, plan. I have it under control. I'll be master soon."

Her father glared at her. "Soon isn't good enough. You need to be master of the Matrix World now." He turned around and started to leave the room but then he stopped. Turning back to her he said, "Come with me. Perhaps you don't have the same sense of urgency as the rest of us."

Tiffany popped her gum. "What do you mean? I'm part of this plan, like, too you know. I feel just as anxious as you guys do about opening World War III."

"This is not going to be World War III. Have they taught you nothing at that Academy, or is it just that it  went in one of your ears, through the matter between them, or lack there of, and out the other side? It's a wonder that we were able to twist your big screw-up around to frame Emily Miller."

"Don't talk to me about that Miller girl. She deserves to die. I hope that she's dead wherever she went."

Her father turned on her and nearly yelled. "You are so stupid! Do you think that she has disappeared from our problems just because she has disappeared from our world? She has obviously gone to another world!"

Tiffany's face fell into a fish-like posture. "What? How could she, like have done that? She doesn't have the use of the portals."

"She has connections."

"How?"

"If you remember me telling you, we don't really know. All we know is that it has something to do with that boy that was hanging around her, Alexis. They have traveled to one of the Anime worlds, where we cannot follow them and cannot track them."

"So what's the big deal? She's gone."

"BUT SHE ISN'T GONE, YOU FOOLISH GIRL!" Tiffany cowered from her father as he calmed down. "Come with me. You clearly are not taking this as serious as you need to be. If we want to succeed in opening all the portals, we need you to be master of the Matrix World immediately."

"…and of late, my brother and I have received prophetic dreams, if you wish to name them such, foretelling dangers and hinting at mysteries that need to be unraveled."

Brian nodded. "When the Creator closed off the connectors between the worlds, she tried to erase everyone's memories of different worlds and put them into gems. But this obviously didn't work because the stuff leaked out. That's why she created our universe."

The Suzaku warriors looked at each other as Taiitsukun nodded. "Yes. The gems did not work completely. That is why we are in danger now."

Brian glared at her. "Hey, grandma. No one asked you. I'm the one handing out the fortune cookie sayings." He shook an imaginary eight ball, "And I think….I think…I think you need to keep quiet so that I can tell the rest of this story, thank you very much." He started to talk again.

"Anyway, before I was rudely interrupted by Miss I-need-a-BOTOX-now,"

"Who are you saying needs a Botox?" Taiitsukun looked Brian in the eye. Brian started to shrink down.

"Nobody! Nobody was insulting your face, in any way, shape or form!" He cringed as she "Hmphed" and started talking.

"As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted by Mr. Should-respect-his-elders, their world is in danger because there are a group of people who are after the gems, because with the gems, they can open the doors to the other worlds."

Tasuki scratched his head, "So, it's sort of like a Gin-sa-ho? Where they have to collect all the gems from all the worlds to open all the portals?"

Taiitsukun nodded. "Yes. Then they can summon the door-opener—"

Emily interjected. "You are incorrect."

The semi-demi-goddess-person turned around and looked at Emily who was standing outside the circle now, leaning against a pillar. "Excuse me, you little boy, but I am absolutely correct on this."

Emily shook her head.  "You are so far from the truth it disturbs me to think of you as the Suzaku Warrior's benefactor."

"What would you know, you're just a boy." Taiitsukun shot back.

Brian and Alexis shot quizzical looks at Emily, but she shook her head and put a finger to her lips. To everyone else, it looked like she was thinking, but Brian and Alexis knew she'd tell them what was going on later.

She continued to spell things out for the grandmother of King Tut, "Clearly, you were misinformed, because in order to open all the portals…"

"…you need only the five major ones from the five major worlds. See, Tiffany? It's written here, in this book. Once the five stones are together, you can recite a spell that harnesses enough power to open all the worlds. Then you have the ultimate power and control because the one who opens the portals is in control."

Tiffany sneered at it. "So all we have to do is get the five gems? Piece of cake."

"Not so. In order to find the gems, we have to find the guardians because they are the only ones who remember where the gems are. They are so well hidden that the guardians don't remember where the gems are hidden until they are brought together. We have identified the guardians as Death, Obi-Wan Kanobi, Legolas, and Dumbledore. We do not know who the guardian is for the Matrix."

"Ohhhh…"

"So you need to become Master so Jin Minamino will tell you who and where the last guardian is. We need to get them together to get the gems soon because Emily Miller and her little friends might be thinking of some way to counteract our attacks."

"Why don't we ambush them?" Tiffany suggested, chewing some more gum. "Then they'll be gone."

Her father glared at her again. "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to track them all down? There are many anime worlds and we'd have to find out when they were in the anime worlds because many of them have their own parallel universes as it is."

Tiffany's eyes widened, "So that's why they're safe. But how can we attack them?"

"We won't. We will wait for them to make a move. Then we will attack them."

"But how is that going to stop them from getting the guardians or the gems?"

"It won't."

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Get the mastership soon. The sooner you do that, the sooner we have the guardians, the sooner we have the gems, the sooner we have the doors open…."

"…and the sooner there will be ultimate chaos and destruction. They will incur the wrath of every evil being and creature in the entirety of the worlds and send them on a path of destruction and death. There will be no way to stop their massacres." Emily concluded simply, letting it all sink in. It was the most she has ever said in front a bunch of stranger before.

'I am losing my touch. Soon I will be talking to everyone.' She sighed. 'I hope that Brian or Alexis can complete the rest of this conversation. I am fatigued from all of this speaking.'

Everyone looked at the three of them, the two twin (boys as far as they were concerned), and the little boy who could pass as Chiriko's twin. Then they looked at Taiitsukun. "So what do we do?" asked Nuriko.

Taiitsukun though for a moment. "I have decided that you need to help them in their mission to recover the guardians and the gems."

"WHAT? Are you serious??"

Everyone looked at Brian. "We have to work with a bunch of people who look like a cross between a kung-fu movie and the lady with the hair that comes out of that shop in Notting Hill that looks like the cookie monster!" He crossed his arms, "How are they going to help us, anyway. They can't Travel."

Tasuki and Tamahome reached up on either side of Brian and attempted to pull him toward their face, but that didn't work:

"Hey! I only have one face that can be intimidated at one time, you know! Gees…you people need a life, I swear." They set him down but continued to glare at him.

"Who says we can't travel? We've traveled more than you ever had."

"Yeah! That's right! We went all the way to Hokkan and Sairo! Most of us went to Kutou too!" Tasuki added in.

Emily rolled her eyes. "I would not consider your visit to Kutou to count for much on the account that Chichiri transported you to and from the capital."

Tasuki glared at her. "How would you know, little prissy boy? You think you know everything, dontcha?"

"That's because s---HE does know everything." Brian replied. He grimaced when he saw the glare that Emily gave him. 'That was close. Emi's still going to give me hell later though."

Taiitsukun cleared her throat. "In order to prevent another disaster from occurring, you need to collect the gems from the six major worlds and then you can summon the portal-closer and seal them away forever. To do this you need to go on a quest to the different worlds to find these different gems."

Alexis coughed. Wrong!

She glared at him. "I do not care if you are a special person that was supposed to be in this world but ended up in the other world instead---"

"What?" Alexis immediately gave her his full attention. "You're making it was like a mistake."

"It was. When you were an infant, there were storms that shook this earth and there was a disturbance in power. Apparently, you disappeared in one of these storms and landed in the next world, in their world."

Emily and Brian looked at each other. "When they closed off the anime worlds." Emily nodded and Brian's comment.

"Yes. That would explain why there is a lack of files missing in the government's archives. It would also provide an explanation as to why the Authorities are in pursuit of him." She looked at Taiitsukun (wow…I nearly wrote Genkai there….mixing up all the little old ladies with ugly faces…). "You are once again, almost entirely incorrect."

"What do you mean, you little stuck up child?"

Alexis looked nervous and he stuck his shoe in the ground, "Well you said that we have to collect the gems from the six major worlds and then we can summon the portal-closer and seal them away forever and we need to go on a quest. We need the five gems from the five major worlds because if the bad guys get them they can open the portals. The portals are already closed and there is no portal-closer to summon."

Brian agreed. "And your Suzaku warriors can't Travel either. Except for Mr. I-had-a-screwed-up-facial-so-my-eyes-are-glued-shut, who's gone in between dimensions before, I don't think that any of you guys can handle Traveling, to another world no less."

Chiriko looked at the three strangers, "But we can provide assistance in some way, can we not?"

Brian looked at Alexis, "That brother of yours, he talks a lot like Emi, doesn't he?" Alexis nodded, grinning. "That's what I said. He's like a little Emi."

Everyone sweat-dropped. Hotohori finally spoke, "I would suggest that those of us who can stray from our duties, attend to and assist these strangers in their mission to stop…" he paused, "whom is it, exactly, that you are trying to stop?"

"The And-er-sons". Saying exactly like Agent Smith did. Brian and Alexis grinned at each other. "Yup, we're against the And-er-sons, like Mr. And-er-son from the Matrix where Agent Smith kept saying 'Hello, Mr. And-er-son." Alexis giggled and Emily rolled her eyes. 'Idiots.'

Hotohori nodded. "Those who have no present obligations assist Alexis, Brai and Ami in their mission. As you know, I am unable to travel due to the empire as well as Hoki and Boushin." He nodded toward Miaka and Tamahome. "I would also suggest that you Tamahome return to your world with Miaka, as not to hurt the baby."

Miaka nodded. "Thank you, Hotohori. We are sorry that we can't help you with your problem." She looked at the three of them. "I hope all you boys do well on your mission." They nodded back, well except for Emily who stood there and blinked. 'This disguise works impeccably well.'

Nuriko looked around. "So sire, that leaves myself, Chichiri, Mitsukake, Tasuki and Chiriko to help you." Just then, there was the sound of someone running toward them.

"Hey! Genro! What's going on?" Koji had arrived. Tasuki turned around and the two of them started dancing. "Haven't seen you in a whiel Koji, how's the gang?"

"Pretty good Genro! Where's Ami?" He looked around his friend and saw the rest of the Suzaku warrior, including the emperor. "Good day, ya highness," he said, bowing.

"Thank you Koji. Do you know Ami?" He gestured toward Emily who was with Brian and Alexis.

"Ya. We found him in a town and he came wit us. He beat all da guys in under ten minutes." Koji walked over to Ami. "Good job out dere. You won me a whole buncha money on bets." He turned around, confused. "What's going on? I saw all of yous gettin' together and I wondered wat was goin' on."

"Well, you see Koji, Ami, Bri and Alexis there are from another world and they need our help to get some stone from these other worlds so they can stop the And-er-sons. So what do you say? You want to help out his majesty once again?"

Emily's eyes widened, 'We are not requesting anyone for assistance, especially from incompetent not-so-intellectuals such as him.' She spoke, "I believe that we do not require any assistance. We are quite capable of handling the situation on our own."

Brian grabbed Emily's shoulder and hauled her and Alexis away. "Excuse us while we debate about this for a while." He went into a huddle away from the group.

Emily glared at him, "What do you think that you are doing, Brian? Clearly, these are fools that are no better equipped to aide us than some amoeba."

"Hey, amoeba can be pretty intelligent considering their size and all, but think about it Emi, what do we have to lose from getting their help?" He looked as his sister glared at him coldly. "They think you're a guy, which has us at a little advantage, but I'm still recovering my strength and Alexis can Travel and fight, but he doesn't have any weapons. These are fighters. They can help us."

"I supposed the idiot bandit, that Tasuki and the little child want to help out as well?" She retorted. "None of them have experienced anything similar to Traveling before. How do you propose to allow them to Travel in any event?"

"Well, I say we break into three teams, you in one, me in another and Alexis in the third. We've all Traveled before, and Alexis is ahead of his grade. The only thing he doesn't have is the translation chip, like us. So he won't be able to read or understand the foreign languages, but that's life."

"And I suppose that you want to employ the help of Nuriko, Tasuki, Chichiri, Mitsukake, and Chiriko?"

Brian nodded, "and that Koji dude. He seems pretty cool. He's also really tight with Tasuki, as far as I can tell."

"You're extremely perceptive, Brian. Your talents in the area of observation astound me." Only Emily could say this without a trace of sarcasm and yet imply that it was more sarcastic than sugar was sweet. Her brother grimaced.

"Thanks a lot Emi, for your support. Yes, I say we get their help. What's the worse that can happen?"

"Tiffany and her relatives achieve their goal before we can accomplish ours."

Brian looked uneasy, "Well, besides that."

"You and whoever happens to be part of your team could become wrapped in something so trivial that it destroys the balance of nature."

Alexis snorted and Brian glared at the both of them. "You know, sometimes I wonder who's side both of you are on." He picked up Alexis. "So what do you think that we should do?"

"I think that we should ask for their help, divide into teams and trace down the guardians and bring them here to figure out what to do next." He thought for a moment. "I like the idea."

Emily sighed. "Clearly, I have no opinion in this matter, so do what you must." Brian grinned, from Emily, this was a resounding 'Yes, I am all for it, when do we start', but then again, perhaps his skills in observation were not as up to par as they could have been.

Brian broke the huddle and hauled the both of them back to the group. He smiled and announced, "We accept your offer."

Hotohori showed the guests to their rooms personally. "Please, feel free to ask the servants for anything if you require it. You three shall be staying in this room. Now, if you please excuse me for the night." He smiled and left, with Alexis, Emily and Brian in the room.

Emily walked around the room, examining it, checking to make sure that were no ways to be killed, injured or spied on. Brian noticed her antics and remarked. "You know, Emi, you don't really have to do that. They're our friends now, so there's nothing to worry about."

Alexis asked, "Emi, why do they call you Ami? And why do they think you're a boy?"

Emily sat down on one of the beds. "When I first arrived I manipulated my appearance so I did not encounter similar dangers as Yui did upon her arrival in Kutou. With some male apparel and my hair dressed in the male fashion, I appeared to be male. I wish to maintain this façade because I feel that it suits my purpose better."

Brian shrugged and leaned back on his bed. "Okay, whatever. You're weird." He reached inside his satchel and pulled out his InidivdiCom. "Let's see if Ryan and John are on." Alexis quickly got bored with his new surroundings and was tired of talking like an adult. "Emi? Bri? Can I walk around? I'm bored."

The twins shared a mental conversation for a brief moment before Brian said, "Sure. Just don't call to us for help when the guards think you're Chiriko, or another Chiriko impersonater." Alexis jumped down off of his bed and left the room. He started walking around aimlessly. He bumped into Chiriko.

"Hello Alexis, how are you?" Chiriko asked. "Would you like to walk with me?" Alexis nodded.

At the same time they asked, "So what's it like living in this/the other world?" They looked at each and laughed. Chiriko gestured for Alexis to go first, "Please. I would like to hear what it is like to live in your world. I'd like to visit it sometime."

Alexis grinned, "Okay, well, first of all, there's these things called Skittles…"

Emily watched Brian as he started up the computer. Then she saw him frown. "What is it that concerns you? Is it a news broadcast?" He shook his head and shoved the IndividiCom at her. "Here, read it yourself."

She read the website that he had opened:

Andersons --- Taking Over Traveling

With the mysterious disappearance of Emily Miller, Brian Miller and the unnamed child, there is little that stands in the way of the Anderson's conquest. Now, with the major masteries under their belts, the family has everything they need to take over completely. It was announced today that Tiffany Anderson, the newest member of this conspiracy has fully accepted the position of the Matrix World Master. Unfortunately, Jin Minamino passed away before being able to make a comment to the NMN due to his cancer.

The Academy of Traveling Arts, the only location with portal equipment to the other worlds, has announced that any Traveling, including Traveling done by Masters of the other worlds, has stopped for the moment. The Academy also has been shut down for repairs for the so-called damage that Emily Miller completed.

There was no damage done to any of the school. We understand that the Andersons have taken control of the Academy's staff and headmaster. As of today, any Masters of the worlds remain where they are. The Andersons have closed off the portals to most of the worlds, except for their own five.

We wonder at what happened to the Miller children. Their parents, Hank Miller and Jennifer Miller have also disappeared. Hank Miller was a secret agent for the government, specializing in undercover missions for the recovery of missing documents. Jennifer Miller, while apparently a housewife, was last seen in the company of Louisa Anderson, mother of Tim and Tiffany, wife to Edward Tyson.

After further investigation, it is uncertain as to the father's whereabouts. Apparently, he has been absent from home for about ten years. The family attempted to pretend that he still existed, to maintain an image of a normal family. We believe that Jennifer Miller has been part of the conspiracy, but we will keep you updated…

Emily stopped reading and stared at Brian. "How was it that they were able to comprehend the intricate mask we placed over our household?"

Brian slowly shook his head. "I don't know. We even spoke like he had just gone out for the day, just in case they were bugging us because of my hacking. I didn't know mom was in on this."

"She might not be. This article continuously refers to 'apparently' and 'seems like', so it may be that she was not involved at all. It is unfortunate that she is missing. However, it is Mr. Miller's disappearance that concerns me to a high degree."

"You can call him dad you know. You don't have to pull that 'Mr. Miller' crap anymore." He sighed. "I talked with Ryan and John for a moment. They say that everything's in chaos. There's no more Traveling. What do we do? They've got Tiffany with the full Mastery right now. So she'll know the guardian is the Oracle."

"Perhaps not." He looked at her sharply. "With an intellect as low as Tiffany's, it is quite possible that she was not told who the guardian is, or where she exists. The Oracle only appears to whom she wishes, now that the agents no longer are a threat to her."

"You're right!" Brian snapped his fingers. "We might have a chance then!"

"We will need to commence in the morning." Emily slowly turned toward the screen and changed behind it. "I suggest that you regain your strength and continue to worry about the reports on the NMN in the morning. Otherwise you will be exhausted."

Brian shut of the IndividiCom. "You're right Emi. I'm worrying over nothing. See you in the morning." He crashed on his bed after putting the computer under his pillow, without changing out of his clothes.

"Brian, you're clothing will be creased tomorrow."

"So?"

"You may wish to change into some other clothing."

"Nah. I'm cool. Besides, wrinkles are all the rage these days. Where's Alexis?"

"He is taking a walk with his brother. He will return later." Emily went to her bed and pulled the covers up primly, causing the least amount of wrinkles as possible. "Go to sleep."

"Fine, fine, Dragon Lady." Both of the twins went to sleep. Later on, Alexis crept in and went to bed, thinking,

'I am so going to have payback on you, Bri. You'll see when you wake up and we assign groups for you to be in on the missions.'

Tiffany got into her pajamas and there was a knock at the door. "Come in," she called. Her older brother Tim walked in the boxers and t-shit that he slept in.

"Tiffany, dad talked to me about our plan, for stopping whatever might happen." He leaned against her bureau and talked to her reflection in the mirror. "We're going to go to our worlds to try and locate the guardians. You know that you're is the Oracle. Mine's the elf Legolas. What you have to do is convince the guardian to come out of the world with you. Do whatever you can. They won't know what's going on. Until they get together, they won't even remember they're the guardians at all."

She popped some gum, "Like, how hard can it be to get a little old woman out of the Matrix. All I've got to do, is like, tell her I'm the good guy and life's good. Go to bed. I'm tired." Tim shrugged and left, thinking, 'She would have done better as the master of the Barbie Social world or something, but she's the one that we have, so be it.'

Tiffany smiled to herself. "Emily, there's no way that you're getting the Oracle before me. I beat you then, I'm going to beat you now." Then she turned out the light.

Emily awoke the next morning, pleasantly surprised by the lack of ominous dreams. 'I wonder if the confounding guardians finally came to the realization that we are in fact doing our duties, and do not require constant reminders.' She looked around to find that Brian and Alexis were already gone.

'What a coincidence. The day that I need to replenish my strength and sleep for an extra few minutes, they awaken early.' She sighed and went to look for her clothes. The boy clothing that she had had the other day was gone. Raising an eyebrow, she noticed the pile of clothing next to her bed on a chair. Holding up a few of the garments, she noticed that they were definitely for a female.

'How?' She wondered before reading a note that fell out from the folds of one of them. She crumpled it after reading it. Quickly, she dressed in the many layers of the elegant female clothing and left the room at a fast, but even-paced walk.

Later that day, a servant would come in to tidy the room and find the piece of paper that read:

Good morning Emi! I hope you slept well. You weren't up when the maids came by this morning. They asked if you would like any new clothes and we said yes, girl's clothes. They looked at us a little strange, but we figured you'd want to be a girl. Say it loud and proud! There's breakfast in the dining room in the east wing. Feel free to join us, Miss Emily Miller. Alexis says good morning as well. He thinks you're strange for wanting to dress up as a boy. I'd have to agree.

Emily silently stormed down the hall because she never showed any emotion about a cold stare. She glared at the servants who were whispering behind her back about her loose hair. Her clothes were meticously in place, because girl clothing or not, they were going to look neat and tidy regardless!

She slowed her pace as she neared the east wing. 'Brian, you will become deceased when I lay my eyes on you next.' Walking into the dining room, she felt the eyes of twelve people on her. She glared at them and then found Brian. "Brian, would you please encompany me outside for a moment?"

Tasuki's chopsticks clatter on his plate. "It's….it's…another Nuriko!"

Nuriko glared at him, "What do you mean, he's another me? He looks nothing like me!"

"He's gay!"

Emily glared at Tasuki and raised an eyebrow. "Please excuse me for a moment." She dragged Brian outside for a moment and the rest of the people heard someone pleading for their life. "Emi! Please! It was only a joke! Come on, it was just a joke! You're not going to kill me are you?"

Alexis grinned. "It's okay. Emily's not gay." He stopped for a moment, "You're not gay if you're a girl and you wear girl's clothes, right?"

Koji's chopsticks also clattered onto their plates and he spoke, "But Ami's a guy. He beat out all da guys back at Mount Reikaku. Dere's no way dat can be a chick."

"Well, she is. Her name's Emily. She was going by the name of Ami for some odd reason. Her nickname is Emi, but that's only for me and Bri. She and Brian are twins." Alexis continued to eat his breakfast. "Emi doesn't like talking much, as you might have guessed, but once she gets to know you, she talks quite a lot."

Emily walked in with Brian in tow. As far as the remaining Suzaku warriors (Miaka and Tamahome had left later last night before anything occurred) could see, he was unhurt, except he was cringing as it he was going to get beaten by a croquet mallet.

"Please excuse my brother's prank. He has an extraordinary ability to make jokes at inappropriate times." She sat down next to Alexis and across from Brian. Emily glared at him one last time before she began to eat her breakfast.

Hotohori looked shocked, "So you are a girl, Ami—I mean Emeelee?"

She looked up and blinked at him. 'Is he so stupid he needs to ask such a simple question?' A second thought came upon her, 'suppose I offend him by refusing to answer, could I destroy all the guards before one managed to decapitate me? Not likely.' So she gave him a small nod.

"That is interesting." Everyone indulged themselves in their meals until Nuriko spoke up. "Sire, what do you plan to do to help Emeeleee, Briaan and Alexis?"

Hotohori opened his mouth to explain but Chiriko interrupted. "We plan to break into four teams, three of which will Travel into three of the different major worlds and retrieve the guardians. Once that is achieved, we will reconvene and reorganize, sending two different teams into the remaining worlds."

Alexis picked it up, "The first team is---"

Brian exclaimed, "Wait a minute! Who is this 'we'?"

"Me and Chiriko. We also made the teams that we felt would be able to work together the best."

Tasuki glared at the two boys, "So you just went and decided on your own before asking the Emperor? You can't do that!"

Emily coldly remarked, "Clearly they have the ability to do so, since they have already completed the task."

Hotohori rubbed his head, "So everything is already predefined? Very well, we will commence sometime later this morning."

Brian nodded, "You can't really stop them. Besides, Chiriko's smart. He knows you guys and Alexis knows us. He'll have put us into teams that will work well together."

"Why do I have to be on the pretty boy team? Alexis, you planned this, didn't you? Why did Emi get a better team than me?" Brian sat, grouching on the floor in the middle of the Suzaku shrine. "Alexis, you like her better than me, don't you?"

Alexis shrugged. "Sorry Bri, but that's the way it goes. Chiriko and I thought that Mitsukake and Chichiri would work the best with Emi, especially since she has a social disease." He grinned at Emily's glare, "But Emi, it's true. If we stuck you with Nuriko or Hotohori, you'd go insane and you'd kill yourself before you worked with the two bandits."

Tasuki and Koji glared at the little boy. Alexis grinned as he ran to hide behind Chiriko. Chiriko looked at the teams they had assembled, "Perhaps we should reorganize the teams a little. I do not think it is a brilliant idea to put Tasuki and Koji on the same team. They will achieve nothing."

"Nothing but trouble." Alexis nodded. "So, we put Mitsukake on our team and give Koji over to Emi's team. I think that Nuriko and Hotohori should stay on Bri's team."

"Let us review. Nuriko, Briaan and myself will Travel to this 'middle earth' to attempt to contact the guardian….?"

"Legolas."

"Lay-goh-lasss and bring him back to Konan. The other teams will attempt to do the same in their respective worlds with their respective guardians."

"Sire, is the empress okay with this? You are endangering yourself." Nuriko was concerned for the Empress Hoki, because she had already suffered from heartache, the first time Hotohori had died.

Chichiri nodded, "Yeah, your majesty, this might be dangerous and you might not come back, ya know."

"Sheesh." Brian rolled his eyes. "This is too complicated. I say we make teams of two and not three or four. The more people we bring into the worlds, the more likely they'll be able to find us. They may not be able to monitor us from here, but they will definitely be able to tell if a bunch of people travel to the worlds."

Emily nodded. Now standing in boys clothing again, she said the first thing since her last remark at breakfast, an hour ago. "It would be unwise to move more than two people into each universe. Each team should have at least one member remaining in this world with some connection to monitor each team's process."

Brian and Alexis looked at each other, "You mean like mirrors?"

"Simpletons," Emily scoffed. "Brian, you will bestow your third member of your ensemble with your computer, to communicate with using the homing chip that was given to you at the Academy." Brian looked confused.

"But what about you? And Alexis? How are you supposed to communicate?"

"I'm on her team, ya know. I can send messages to Koji back in Konan, like a did for his majesty, ya know." Chirchiri explained. Then he asked Emily, "But I'm not sure how you plan to keep Alexis's team in communication, ya know. He doesn't have any magic ya know."

Emily flashed her eyes at him. "Obviously, Alexis has a strong mental connection with Chiriko, as he was able to interpret mental images unconsciously sent by Chiriko to him in our world. The time he has spent with Chiriko in Konan has strengthened Chiriko's end of the communication. They should now be capable of a sort of telepathy." She looked at the two startled boys. "Do it."

"Do what Emi?" Alexis was confused. "Try to talk with him using my mind?"

Emily nodded. Alexis looked at Chiriko and closed his eyes. He concentrated on sending something he saw.

Chiriko closed his eyes and suddenly snapped them open. "I received it. Suddenly, I had an image of Tasuki in a dress." He laughed a little. "Pink is not the best color selection for Tasuki, Alexis." He closed his eyes and imagined something.

Alexis started giggling as he opened his eyes, "Chiriko! I don't think that yellow does him much better." The brothers laughed while Tasuki stood fuming, staring at both of them. The rest of the Suzaku warriors snickered.

"I guess that works." Nuriko was still giggling, "So Alexis and Tasuki will go to one world, Emeelee and Chichiri will go into another and Briaan and I will go into another. So that means, his majesty, will remain here with…that thing…, Koji will have a mirror to receive Chichiri's messages and Chiriko will stay here with Mitsukake."

Brian nodded. "So let's get going. Alexis, you and Kyo go first." Emily rolled her eyes as Tasuki looked confused.

"Kyo? Who's Kyo? I'm not Kyo. I'm supposed to go…" Brian held out a hand. "Never mind. Just go." Alexis and Tasuki stepped up to a small dais. Alexis grabbed his hand and said, "Focus all your energy on the mental images I send to you, okay? And don't let go."

They both closed their eyes as Alexis shouted, "Kyuusei!" There was a flash of sparkles and a piece of paper drifted to the floor. Emily walked over to it and read it, 'What's going on? Why are there all these sparkles everywhere? Alexiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis!'

Puzzled she handed the piece of paper to Brian who read it as well. "Okay, whatever. Let's go. And now………..bachorlette number two!" Emily rolled her eyes as Chichiri and herself stepped onto the dais. He spread out his cloak. "Stand on the cloak. It'll give us the power to go, ya know."

"Focus the mental image to me, ya know?" Emily nodded. "I know." She closed her eyes and so did Chichiri. The two of them slowly sank into his cloak, which was sucked into a 'black hole'. A few moments later, nothing remained to show that there had been two people standing there a few moments ago.

Brian walked up to the podium and put his IndividiCom on the ground. "Chiriko, Alexis taught you how to use this, right?" the teenager nodded. "Good. Come on, pretty boy."

Nuriko scowled, "Just because I look better than you doesn't mean you get to make it sound like it's a bad thing." He grabbed Brian's hand and closed his eyes. Brian tried to wiggle out of his grip.

"Ewwww….I'm holding hands with a guy! That's soooo gross!" Brian closed his eyes too and focused on going to Middle Earth. The computer glowed with a silver light that engulfed the two of them. Then there was a bright flash of white and silver light before Nuriko and Brian vanished.

Chiriko, Koji, Hotohori and Mitsukake looked at each other and then back at the computer which immediately began buzzing and making computer-noises. A little chat button icon came up and Chiriko clicked on it.

**hkrxtreme712:** hey bri. its me ryan.

**dudetinageturtlz4kul: **sme john – watz shakin dude?

The four of them looked at each other.

"What does it mean, your majesty?" Chiriko was puzzled by the strange language.

"You have never encountered it before in your studies Chiriko? I have never read such a type of language before." Hotohori tried to read it. "I wonder what it means."

**hkrxtreme712:** dude there's trubl comin ur way: the NMN is sayin there are Authorities pouring into the worlds

**dudetinageturtlz4kul:** yea dude, u gotta figure out sum way 2 get round dat serious shit

"I have no clue." Koji put in his input. "I hope it's not sayin' anthin' dat's important or somethin'."

"Let us all hope that is the case…"

End of Part Three

A/n: There it was. How was it? If you are reading this, please review. I want at least a couple reviews before I post the next chapter. Let's say five. I need five reviews before I post Part Four, which is:

**Part 4: An co di truoc, loi nuoc theo sau**: When having a part go first, when walking in the water, go after

just as a note, all the chapter titles are Asian proverbs that I feel are relative to the chapter. The first is Chinese, the second is Japanese, the third is Korean, and the fourth is Vietnamese: in case you were wondering. I just realized that I'm going to have to resort to using Khmer or something unless I repeat languages.


	4. An co di truoc, loi nuoc theo sau

A/n: So here I am. I am so sorry about not being able to update sooner, but I've had a lot going on. Chances are that I won't be able to finish part five for a while because I have finals coming up fast, but I will do my best. It's an okay chapter. And now for thank yous:

**Ryochan8**: I'm glad that you like it. I noticed your request and I attempted to comply to some degree, so watch toward the end for the Legolas torture (or what could be conceived as torture in some societies.) Thank you for your reviews. There's also a little argument at the end which semi-tortures Legolas, or would if he knew Chinese.

**Samurai-Nashie**: Thank you very much. Your reviews are great for motivation. What more could a poor writer want?

**Otaku Pitcher**: blinks wow. That was one helluva review. I love your comments and I'm in awe at how you were able to capture my intent when it comes to my characters personalities in only a couple of words. Wow. I might update just to get more reviews from you!

**Part 4:** An co di truoc, loi nuoc theo sau: When having a part go first, when walking in the water, go after

He was surrounded in a dark gray light, with lightning flashes. 'It's a bit like traveling in a space warp or something from those old movies.' Then, the clouds passing by slowly started to stop moving. There was a bright light and Brian landed in Middle Earth.

Well, it would have been more correct to say that he landed in the middle of some earth, but that's beside the point. Nuriko landed in a tree and clung onto the branch. Brian grinned at his silly position. "What, is Nuriko pretty boy scared of a tree? What's it gonna do? Let go of you?" He started laughing.

"What are you laughing about?" Brian stopped immediately and looked up. He didn't have far to look  up on the account that a short man with a scythe was standing over him. "And what are you doing in my crop field?" He looked up at Nuriko in the tree, "I want both of you off my property at once!"

Brian stood up and brushed his pants off. He looked down at the little man. "Ooooh, that's really scary. You and what army?" He looked over the hobbit's shoulders with a grin on his face. 'This is the part where he looks behind him and sees nothing, so he backs away slowly before breaking into a run.' His grin got bigger as the hobbit looked over his shoulder. But what happened next was unexpected.

The hobbit whistled and called out, "Boys! We've got some intruders!" Brian's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. All he could hear was some dogs barking, getting closer. Then he saw the three or four scythes coming towards him. He started backing away. 'Don't get me wrong, I'm not scared of midget men with weapons, but there's dogs. They don't sound like nice dogs. They sound like really mean dogs. Dogs that need to be run from…' Brian turned and started running.

Nuriko dropped out of the tree. "Who's the one laughing now, Briaan?" He also saw the dogs and the short weapons moving above the crops, decided that it was in his best interest to avoid an encounter with satan's doggies, so he started running too.

"Do you know where we're supposed to be going, anyway?" He asked as he ran alongside with Brian. Not getting a reply from the teen, Nuriko rolled his eyes and continued to run away from the fearsome hobbit. After the two humans had jumped off the ledge that four hobbits had fallen down several years ago, the hobbit farmer laughed at their retreating backs.

"That teachers you big folk to mess around with Farmer Maggot!" Brian groaned from where he was. 'Of course, it had to be Farmer Maggot, didn't it? Of all the bumbling hobbits to run into, we have to run into the one with the weapons, dogs, kids, and an obsession with protecting his crops. Brother.'

After a while, they stopped running and stopped by the side of the road, catching their breath. Nuriko asked again, "Do you know where we're supposed to be going? As far as I can tell, we've run a bit, but where do we need to go to find the guardian?"

Brian looked thoughtful for a moment. "I have no clue." Nuriko face-faulted. "But I do know that he's an elf. So that should be easy to pick out in this country. Most of the people here would be wonderful extras in the Wizard of Oz, or Charlie and Chocolate Factory as Oompa-Loompas."

"What is the wee-zard of ozz and charlee and choo-coh-lette fact-orrry? What is an umpa-lumpa?" He paused for a moment. "You say the guardian is an elf. What exactly does an elf look like that makes his so easy to pick out?"

"Well he's got blond hair, probably blue eyes, sort of tall…."

Nuriko's eyes widened. "No. He cannot be the guardian of the stone. That's impossible!"

Brian gave him a weird look. "Well, we is. He's the guardian of whatever gem or stone they have in the world. I wonder if he goes around in his cape or if he's gone back to the traditional stuff."

"But how can he be here, in this world? That's impossible!" Nuriko looked very concerned at this point. "Why didn't you tell us that he had a different name now?"

"What do you mean, different name? And of course it's possible, he was born here!" Brian was getting really confused. "He doesn't have a different name. He's had the same name since before the war against Sauron. We didn't change it."

Now Nuriko was getting a little ticked off. "Then why did you tell us that his name was "Leg-oh-las"?"

"Because that's his name!"

"But then he changed his name!"

"From what?"

"He used to be called Nakago!"

Brian gave Nuriko a blank look. "Who's Nakago?"

Nuriko explained, "He's a tall, blond foreigner with blue eyes that wore a cape. He was the one that tried to take over the Universe of the Four Gods and then Miaka's world." Brian, not an avid manga reader or anime watcher, was still clueless. "He died when Tamahome killed him, but perhaps he got reincarnated or maybe one of his blue earrings helped---"

"Wait a minute." Brian held up a hand. "Legolas does not wear earrings. I'm pretty sure of that. They just don't go with the pointed ear look. If he wore earrings, he'd look like that guy from NSYNC, the one with the pointed ears that looks like an elf."

"Pointed ears?" Now Nuriko was confused. "Nakago never had pointed ears. His ears were shaped like a regular humans." Some bells went of in Brian's head. Unfortunately, they didn't want to stop ringing after the initial bang.

"SHUT UP YOU STUPID LITTLE BELLS!!!" Brian smacked his head against the ground and looked apologetically at Nuriko. "Sorry, it's just that I can hear the bells. They're going off in my head. Anyways, I think that our best choice would be to go into a town and try to find out where the elves live now so we can find him." Then the bells rang again. "OKAY! I GET THE POINT!" He remembered what it was.

"Nuriko, I think you're thinking of Nakago. He's the general dude from your world, right? Well, Legolas is an elven prince from this world. Here, all the elves are tall and pretty. He just happens to have blond hair and blue eyes. Probably spits out more fortune-cookie phrases than that lady from the Matrix."

Nuriko and Brian gave each other a look and then sweat-dropped. "So do you know where we can find Legolas?"

Brian held up his index finger, "As a matter of fact….I don't." Nuriko glared at him. "Okay, I was just joking. He's with the rest of the elves. All we have to do is waltz right up to Bagsend and ask Frodo or Sam."

"Who are Frodo and Sam?" The two of them started walking toward the town. "Why are all the people so short here?"

"Well, this is the land of the oompa-loompa midegets, where everyone is short and everyone goes around singing "oompa-loompa, doopidi-do! I've got another puzzle for you!" Brian sang. Nuriko looked horrfied. "I'm just kidding. The people in this part of the world are short because their hobbits. They're just short people. Frodo and Sam are the two main hobbits that our Authors are concerned about." Brian stopped smiling for a moment. "Keep an eye out for anyone who looks suspicious. We're on enemy territory now."

Nuriko nodded. The two of them continued to walk toward Hobbiton. Suddenly, there was noise behind them. "You! Come back here with my crops! You took some mushrooms! I can tell!"

Nuriko looked at Brian who was smiling guilty, "Did you take any of that hobbit's crops?"

"No! Why would I ever do something like that? That would be so unbelievably dishonorable of me!" He smiled broadly. Nuriko's eye twitched.

"So you did steal some food while we were running away from him the first time."

"But I didn't steal it---" Nuriko grabbed him and the two of them started running again. Brian called out to him, "Just because you're a pretty boy and you're scared doesn't mean that both of us have to run!"

"Just because you're a stupid idiot and you're too stupid to be scared doesn't mean that both of us have to stay and get hurt by a short person with a sharp metallic object!"

"Point taken! Lead on, Macduff! We're off to Hobbiton! CHARRRRRRRGE!" Brian started running at full speed away from Farmer Maggot.

'Why did I have to get stuck on his team?' Nuriko wondered as they ran.

Emily and Chichiri watched as the darkened clouds stopped moving, and a light appeared. Chirchiri and Emily blinked as the light faded and they found themselves in an alleyway, of some bustling city. Chichiri looked around while Emily closed her eyes, to see if she could sense any Authorities anywhere. (They tended to send off a supernatural wave of stupidity that anyone could sense).

"So who are we trying to find here? We might want to get done with this as soon as possible, ya know?" Chichiri started to walk out of the alleyway. Emily rolled her eyes.

"Of course the entire purpose of this mission is to complete the task quickly and efficiently. However, the populace in this world has a tendency to reject any peculiar activities or persons. This would include our current attire."

"We should get some clothes that work in this world, ya know?" Chichiri appeared to think for a moment. "I got it ya know!" He walked to the end of the alleyway, looked out and then came back. There was a poof and standing before Emily was a man that looked like he had never heard of a shower in his life.

"For your creativity, I commend you slightly, but for presentation, your outfit is completely unsatisfactory." Chichiri looked down at his clothes, and looked puzzled.

"But it's what someone was wearing, ya know? So it's got to be the right stuff, ya know." He pointed a finger at her. "You're the one that needs to get the right clothes now, or else they'll think you're weird, ya know?"

Emily sighed. "If that is the case, turn around." Chichiri did so without question and then turned back around when Emily announced that she was finished. Now she was dressed in the clothes of a watchman, or actually, a watchwoman, but that's beside the point.

"Where did you get those clothes? We've only been here for a couple of minutes, ya know?" They started walking out of the alleyway.

"I prepared some attire that would be appropriate." She stopped for a moment. 'Regrettably, it resembles a Konan guard's uniform, but it will not cause enough of a stir here to prevent us from the completion of our mission.' Then she walked on ahead.

"So we need to find the guardian. You know where to look, I can help, but not much, ya know?" Chichiri tried to engage in some small talk, but it wasn't working very well. Then he sensed something. "Wait a moment, ya know?" Emily stopped walking.

"I sensed some type of a force. It was strange, ya know? Sort of like a presnence of a celestial warrior, ya know?"

Emily nodded. "Fine. What direction does it originate from?"

Chichiri pointed, "I think it's coming from that building over there. Can you sense it too?"

"Obviously I cannot due to the fact that I am not a celestial warrior. If I had been capable of sensing it, I would not have posed such a question." Emily huffed off in the direction of the building. 'This appears to be a…school?' She was surprised. 'The guardian, Death. I would not have anticipated in finding him here.'

She proceeded to walk into the building. Chichiri watched her go and disappeared. 'I'll just follow her and see what she does, ya know?'

Emily turned down the empty corridors. She could hear talking in one of the rooms and she walked up to the door.

"Grandfather, I understand when you say that the Auditors are acting stranger than normal, but I'm asking why. I want a direct answer."

I DO NOT KNOW WHY. Emily jerked away from the door. 'It is true, that his voice in most peculiar. The Author responsible for recording the events in this world did a satisfactory job on accounting his voice.' She put her ear against the door again.

"Someone is listening." There was a snap of fingers and Emily felt a tingling sensation. The rest of the world around her had seemed to stop. She saw the shadows of frozen leaves, supposedly stopped in mid-sway in the breeze. The air seemed to stiffen, if only just a little.

Chichiri popped out of nowhere. "Wow. This person is a real sorceror, ya know? I didn't think anyone could stop time like that, ya know."

Suddenly, the door opened and a young woman stood there. "Why are you still listening? I stopped time for a reason, you know." Emily glared at her. The woman had dark eyes and white hair, similar to herself, aside from the fact that this strange woman's hair seemed to model after the Bride of Frankenstein.

Emily stood up to face her. "I do not recall having to request permission to do as I will." The young woman stiffened and replied, "Well, you are very impolite, listening in on conversations." Chichiri could see that this conversation wasn't going to go anywhere.

He hastily jumped in front of Emily. "Well, we're looking for the guardian in this world, his name is Death, ya know? Have you seen him anywhere?"

The woman smiled. "Why should I tell two rude strangers about where Death is?"

"Because he's right behind you, ya know."

WHO ARE YOU? The seven-foot-tall grim reaper walked behind Susan. WHY ARE YOU HERE? YOU ARE NOT AUDITORS, BUT WHAT ARE YOU?

Emily chose to remain silent and glare at the personification for death. 'This guardian is pathetic. We need to convince him to come with us to Konan and complete this mission quickly. I cannot stand that woman.' She threw another cold glare to Susan, who glared back with an equally cold stare.

AH, I SEE. IT IS TIME TO GATHER THE GUARDIANS. Death tilted his skull for a moment. UNFORTUNATELY, I CANNOT COME WITH YOU.

"Elaborate." There was a staring contest. He might have been the grim reaper, but he was hardly up to Emily's cold glare. "You are necessary to the recovery of the gems."

HOW ODD. I DON'T REMEMBER THAT.

Emily rolled her eyes as Chichiri said, "But that's because you're not supposed to remember until you get with the other guardians, ya know?"

Death shook his head. NOT THAT. WE DO NOT NEED TO BE GATHERED TOGETHER IN ORDER TO REMEMBER WHERE THE GEMS ARE. SO IT IS NOT NECESSARY FOR ME TO APPEAR.

Chichiri gave a troubled look. "Are you sure about that? So if you don't need to come with us, is there some way to give us the gem, ya know?"

NO.

"Then how are we supposed to recover the gems?"

SQUEAK? A little skeletal rodent appeared. SQUEAK.SQUEAK, SQUEAK, SQUEAK. SQUEAK!

"He says that he is the one that has the so called gem and that the only way that the gems can be taken from the guardians, are if the guardians are gathered together. I think." Susan screwed up her face at the rodent as it started gibbering again. "Well I'm sorry if I translated it wrong. Bring your crow translator next time." She looked up. "Please excuse me, I have more tests to correct." She walked into the classroom and shut the door.

Emily, Chichiri, Death and the Death of Rats looked at one another. "Well, I guess you better come along with us, if you have the gem, ya know." The little rat nodded and jumped onto Emily's shoulder. She glared at it, but to no avail, the Death of Rats grinned back in it's rodent way. She removed him and put him on Chichri's shoulder.

"We are finished here." She glared at Chichri. "Contact the third member of our team. I need images from Konan to Travel."

Chichri nodded and whipped out a small mirror. Putting a finger to his lips he said, "Ho!" An image appeared in the mirror. However, the mirror did not show the images of the palace, but of the third member of their team. Emily tried to concentrate, but couldn't take the images and change them into the mental images that she needed. 'I need direct images. My memories of Konan are not strong enough to allow me to Travel safetly, and images from the mirror are not clear enough.'

"Chichiri! How's it goin? Dere hasn't been much goin' on here, dat is." Koji grinned. "Ya guys ready to come back?"

"Yes. But we need some help, ya know." Koji looked confused. "Wat do ya mean by that? You guys are supposed to come back, right? Why'd ya need my help?"

"Well, you see, Emily needs images from Konan to come back ya know. I'm going to set up a direct link from his mind to yours. It's the only way for you to get the images, ya know."

Emily sighed. "Fine. Do what you feel is necessary." She closed her eyes. After a few seconds, she could see again, but it was not of Discworld. It was like looking through another's eyes. 'I need to focus on the imagery to form the images in my mind to Travel.'

'Hey! Dis is strange. Wat's goin' on?'

Emily mentally rolled her eyes. 'I am currently forced to share my thoughts with the most absolute idiot in the world.' She focused quickly on the images projected into her mind from Koji's eyes. 'Focus your eyes on one particular entity, you imbecile so we can conclude this idiotic arrangement.'

'Fine. Wat ever.' Koji's eyes focused on the wall and Emily focused on the image as well. "Chichiri, I am prepared." Chichiri started his spell and spread his cloak on the floor. He added in his mental images of Konan to Emily's/Koji's. Then they started to sink into the cloak with the Death of Rats.

A few seconds later, all that was left was Death, who slowly walked back into the classroom to continue his discussion with his granddaughter Susan. WHAT STRANGE PEOPLE THERE ARE THESE DAYS.

Hotohori gazed at the screen, which had a digital map with two figures on it. One labeled 'Brian' the other, 'Nuriko'. In one corner, was the little box with the updates from Ryan and John. The dialogue box has shown no signs of changing for a while. He looked at the other two people.

Koji and Chiriko were sitting on the ground. Koji with a mirror in his hands, grinning slightly; Chiriko concentrating with a slight frown. Mitsukake was no where in sight for the moment. He looked back at the screen, confused by the contraption.

A few seconds later, there was some light before Emily and Chichiri appeared. Chichiri floated in mid-air before lightly coming to rest on the floor, while Emily fell from the same height. Koji opened his eyes and jumped up, prepared to catch her, but Emily somersaulted out of his way and landed in a crouch several feet behind him.

"Emily! Chichiri! Was your mission to bring the guardian of the Discworld successful?" Hotohori stood up and walked over to the two of them.

Emily was frowning with her eyes closed. "Disconnect this fool from me." She opened her eyes and glared at Chichiri. 'I cannot stand this constant stream of communication for an extended period of time.'

'Knock knock! Who's dere? Koji! Koji who? Koji who's talkin' ta Emi, dat's who!'

"I refuse to allow you to refer to me as 'Emi'. That right is reserved for Brian and Alexis alone." Emily coldly stared at Koji. "Do not even attempt to speak with me, stupid thief."

Koji looked a little hurt as Chichiri apologized. "Oh, sorry. I forgot about that, ya know." Chichiri released the spell. "There you go." He turned to Hotohori and Chiriko. "How are the other two missions going, ya know?"

Hotohori gestured at the small computer screen. "I am not entirely certain about what is happening, but Nuriko and Brian have been moving constantly. I believe that they are being pursued by some individuals." Emily immediately blurred over to the computer screen.

'Authorities? It is feasible that they might have discovered the pair of them, but it is unlikely.' She quickly opened a scan on Find-a-lot. 'Computer, run a search on Authorities.' After a few moments, the results came up. There were several authorities, but they were not in the same vicinity as Nuriko and Brian.

'Who is pursuing them, if not the Authorities?' She ran a quick search under "Nuriko Brian". Emily was a little irritated, but not the least bit surprised. "They are under the process of escaping the wrath of three corpulent hobbit people."

Chiriko opened his eyes. "What is a hobbit?" His eyes widened and he appeared to be listening to someone. "Oh, I see. Thank you Alexis." He closed his eyes and focused on Alexis's and Tasuki's quest in search of the gems in the Wizarding world.

Everyone's sweat drops disappeared, except for Emily's who never had one in the first place. Mitsukake walked into the room, holding Tama in one hand, and a little black figure in the other. "Chichiri, what is this?" He held up the Death of Rats. Everyone crowded in to look, except for Chiriko and Emily who were watching the others.

"Alexis says that it's the Death of Rats. He is in charge of collecting and guiding the spirits or souls of the small rodents, such as ham-st-ars, rats, mice and skwir-als." He looked confused and listened to Alexis some more. Then he appeared to be enlightened as he smiled and laughed a little. "I understand."

Emily rolled her eyes. 'Child telepathy. It is the most clichéd entity ever created.' She returned to her monitoring of the IndifividiCom as the rest of them crowded around the healer with the rodent. Hotohori regarded the grim squeaker with a puzzled look.

"Forgive me if I misunderstood, but I was under the impression that the Death of the Discworld that you spoke of was the guardian of the stone for that world."

SQUEAK. SQUEAKSQUEAKSQUEAK. SQUEAK. SQUEAK, SQUEAK. The Death of Rats squeaked out a message and everyone gave each other strange looks. "What does he mean?"

"I'm not sure ya know."

Emily sighed. "Obviously, he merely stated that Taiitsukun failed to specify which Death of the Discworld was the guardian. As it happens, the Death of the Rats is the guardian. He also included the fact that there is no longer a need to bring all the guardians together for them to remember where the gems of memory are. The Death of Rats currently possesses the gem for Discworld, but cannot release it without the presence of the other gems."

Koji and Mitsukake looked at her in surprise. "Ya can understand wat he's sayin'?" Koji was amazed.

"No. That information was released to my team upon our arrival in Discworld." Then they face-faulted. 'Honestly, does everyone in this universe have a physical handicap whenever they are astounded or exasperated?' She sighed and continued to monitor Brian's and Nuriko's process.

Chichiri turned to Chiriko. "How are Tasuki and Alexis doing, Chiriko? I hope they're okay, ya know."

Chiriko nodded with his eyes closed. "They are nearly finished." He opened one of his eyes, "Thank goodness. I don't think that Alexis can possibly handle much more of Tasuki. Tasuki still has not fully remembered that I am Chiriko and he is not."

Tasuki clenched onto Alexis's arm, even when they arrived in a bunch of sparkles into the empty dining hall of Hogwarts. "I want to go back! Let me go! I don't want to travel to other worlds anymore!" Alexis rolled his eyes.

"Tasuki, we're here. But we need to move somewhere else because classes will be getting out soon." Tasuki opened one of his eyes and slowly unclenched his grip from Alexis's arm. Alexis started pulling him out of the dining hall. "Come on Tasuki, you can walk. We need to move out of the way, soon."

The sounds of hungry students were echoing down the stone hallway outside the dining hall. Tasuki grabbed Alexis and ran into a side room, where there were a lot of pictures of sleeping old people. He stopped to look at them while Alexis checked in with Chiriko. "These are weird paintings. Who would want to have paintings of sleeping old people?"

"They don't sleep all the time. Just now. It's their morning naps, I would think." Chiriko answered, pulling out a map. "So, we need to get to Dumbledore's office to talk with him. I think I know how to get there."

"How do you know all this stuff Chiriko? And where did you get that map?"

"I'm not Chiriko."

"Oh, that's right. I forgot. Sorry about that." Tasuki continued to stare at the paintings before jumping back. "Hey! That guy snored! The guy in the painting's alive! What kind of sorcery is that?" He pointed a quivering finger at the painting in question.

Alexis sighed. "That's because they're magic. All the pictures and paintings in this world move on their own accord. As I said, it's probably their mid-morning nap. Those are the old headmasters and headmistresses." Alexis consulted his map. "So we need to go through the dining hall, down that corridor, up those stairs…" he trailed off as he continued to read his map.

"Where'd you get the map, Chi—I mean Alexis?" Tasuki stopped looking at the paintings and down at the map. "Whoa, and it's in foreign writing. Do you know what it means?"

"Yes. It's English. Emi brought me this map for my birthday. Brian made it with the information that he got off of the hacker's connection on the Net. It's a map of Hogwarts, that's the name of this school." Alexis suddenly realized something and groaned.

Tasuki looked worriedly at him, "What's the matter, Chirik—I mean Alexis? Are you sick?" Alexis shook his head.

"No. But of all the rooms to hide in, you had to bring us to the one that only has one exit—into the dining hall. That was a brilliant piece of foresight you had there." Alexis sat down on the floor to contemplate the different ways that they could leave without being noticed.

"Let's see. I'm still in my school uniform, so I can possibly pass as a student from another school." He looked at Tasuki, orange hair and all. "You, on the other hand. Are going to be impossible to explain." Alexis sighed for a moment. 'If only this were as easy as in the movies, where the good guy always manages to catch a disguise somehow.'

'Tasuki has a little skill with magic, why not attempt to pass him off as a sorcerer from that world.'

'Chiriko! That's a good idea, but why would he be visiting? The students here are very perceptive and there is no lack of courage as far as curiosity is concerned.' Alexis worriedly explained.

Chiriko sighed. 'Then just say that he is senile or claim that he has some sort of mental institution that forces him to pretend that he is currently living in ancient China. They have strange, insane persons in that world, don't they? Then it should be easy to pretend that he is merely a relative. You wish to visit the school, but he is your guardian.'

Alexis's light bulb turned on. 'That's brilliant brother! Thank you! I'll talk with you later, if I manage to survive all this.'

'It is not a problem.' Chiriko and Alexis closed off the link. Alexis turned around and faced Tasuki. "Can you act like you normally do?"

Tasuki gave him a weird look, "Yeah, sure. Why?"

Alexis grinned. "Don't worry about it. Here's the run-down: I am a visiting student and you are my guardian. Got that? Just act normal. Whatever you do, don't call me Chiriko."

"Okay." Tasuki was still confused. "Whatever you say. So let's do this Chiriko---I mean Alexis!" Alexis sweat-dropped and the two of them left the waiting room outside of the dining hall. (A/n: sorry if it isn't called that. I haven't read a Harry Potter book in a while, and I forget what it's called.)

Luckily, the students had returned to their classes. Alexis looked at his map again. "Okay, so we turn left here….and right here….oh, Tasuki, watch out for Peeves, will you?"

"What's a Peeves?" Tasuki was looking at the paintings on the walls as well as the statues in the corridors.

"Peeves is the name of the school's poltergeist." Alexis could particularly feel Tasuki's mouth opening so he could ask 'what is a poel-ta-giist?'. "And in case you were wondering, that means that he's a type of ghost thing—sort of. You'll be able to tell its him by the fact that you will have been attacked."

Tasuki immediately went on the look out. "Attacked? Hah! There's nothing that my fire can't handle!"

"Oh! What's this?" A little chuckle was heard above the two of them. They looked up and only Alexis had the foresight to move out from under the water balloons. "Hahahahaha! Now he's no longer dry! Why didn't he move out of the way? He was too stupid to try!" Then the little man disappeared from where he'd been hovering in mid-air.

"What was that?" Tasuki took off his coat and started to ring it out. "Was that Peeves? I wish he could have stayed for a while longer, because then I could have blasted him with my fire."

Alexis rolled his eyes. "Like that would ever happen." He nodded down one of the corridors. "This way. We need to go up these stairs." He skipped up the stairs (don't ask how, but this is fully possible to the talented and coordinated skipper.) He called back, "Watch out for the one that'll get you stuck!"

A few seconds later, there was a brief yell of surprise as Tasuki managed to get his foot stuck in the stair that wasn't there. "Chiriko…Alexis, help me! I'm stuck!" Alexis sighed and hopped down the stairs (also possible to the experienced hopper) to help pull him out.

Just then, a stream of voices entered the hallway. Classes were over for the morning. Alexis looked up the stairs where the voices were coming from, then at Tasuki. Tasuki looked all around, waiting for an attack to show up and be challenged by his fire.

"Uh, oh."

"Whew. That was a close one, Brian. Thank goodness these trees are concealing." Nuriko sat down and looked at his partner. "So are we still trying to head towards Bags-and? To see Frodo and Sam?"

Brian nodded. "Yes. But we have to make sure that the least number of people see us as possible because we'll have similar encounters. Then we will have no choice but to blend in the with the local population."

"Blend in? With the local population? I think we're a little tall for that." Nuriko was puzzled. "I don't think that they'll have clothing that fits us either."

Brian rolled his eyes. "I never said that we had to look like the local population, just look like we fit in with the local population. Um….Let me see. I can be Gandalf and you can be…Gimili."

"Who are Gand-elf and Gim-lee? Are those names that wer are giving ourselves for this world?" Brian shook his head.

"They are legendary warriors! Fighters who surpassed all the odds! They were part of the original Fellowship of the Ring! A friendship that not even the Evil of THE RING could break apart—except for that bit about Boromir and the way that Frodo and Sam left with the ring because it was breaking them up and Aragon had that little bit with Frodo where the ring called out to him—"

"Enough! You do realize that I have no idea about what you're talking. And if we're named after warriors, is it possible that they're still around? What if we meet them or wouldn't people know what the real ones look like?" Nuriko tried to break through Brian's orator aura. He was about neck deep in the mood of his speech. "I mean, if someone showed up saying they were Tamahome or his highness, no one would believe them, because no one looks like Tamahome…or I should say Taka."

Brian nodded quickly. "Right. So I can be Daisy and you can be Sunflower. Hobbits name their daughters after flowers, but wait—I can't be named after a flower because I'm not a girl. So I'll be David---no, wait. That name doesn't exist here…."

Nuriko was losing his patience slowly but surely. "We aren't going to blend in whatever we do, so does it really matter what names we pick for ourselves? The locals are not going to ask us what our names are, so it doesn't matter."

"But it does!" Brian pouted for a moment before completely changing attitude and started walking down the path toward Hobbiton. "Come on Nuriko! You're going to make us late!"

Nuriko followed after him, "Late? Late for what?"

The two of them finally arrived in Hobbiton. What Nuriko said was true. There was no way that two people would fit in with the midget crowd. So Brian immediately squatted down to talk to a little girl. "Hey there little girl, can you tell us where Bags End is? We're a little lost."

The little girl took one look at Brian with his white hair and dark purple eyes, then over to Nuriko with his purple hair and strange clothes. Well, both were wearing strange clothes as a matter of fact. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the two strangers before turning around and yelling, "Daddy! Daddy! There's two stwangars! They trwy to hurt me!"

Both Nuriko's and Brian's warning bells started ringing. They started running in a direction, it didn't matter where. Just as long as it was away from the little men with the sharp pointed objects. "Thank you for your help!" Nuriko called back as they continued to run.

As soon as they were away from the center of the town, and wandering down one of the little avenues that lead to the Hobbit holes, they slowed down a bit. "Whew. That was close. I really thought that we were going to be found there."

Nuriko nodded. "If we keep this up, it won't be long before those…authorities find us."

Brian shook his head. "Nah. They wouldn't think of looking for us here. Maybe Rivendell, or possibly Gondor or Rohan, but not Hobbiton. The only thing that we have to worry about is---"

"'ere now! What do yer think yer doing? Get away from those flowers!"

Brian sighed, "Is little fat men pointing sharp metallic objects in my face for destruction of plants." He looked down at the hobbit who was wielding a pair of pruning clips. He held up his hands in defeat. "Look, I'm sorry if I hurt your stupid flowers, but there's nothing I can do. What do you want me to do? Glue them back together again."

The hobbit still glared at him. "Mister Frodo isn't going to like this. He liked those flowers. You need to apologize to Mister Frodo!"

"What did you say, Mr. Frodo?" Brian looked down at the hobbit. "Are you…Samwise Gamgee?" The hobbit quickly backed away.

"Who wants to know?" He glared suspiciously at the two tall males. "You aren't causin' trouble, are you?"

Brian immediately shook his head. "Nope. We were wondering if we could see Mr. Frodo, if you wouldn't mind. We need to find a friend and Frodo---I'm sorry, Mr. Frodo," he added upon being prodded with the pruning shears, "can tell us where to find him."

Sam was still suspicious. "What's the name of this friend of yours?"

Nuriko smiled. "His name is Legolas." Brian glared at Nuriko, whispering, "You weren't supposed to say that yet!" The hobbit flinched.

"Legolas?" He opened the shears, "Just who are you? What are your names?"

Brian grinned. "Well you see, I'm Brat Pitt and he's Jessica Simpson!" Both Nuriko and Sam looked at Brian in confusion, having no idea who either of the dead actors were. "Okay, fine. Would you believe me if I told you my name is Brian and I am a twin from another dimension and we have to gather a group of guardians together and Legolas is one of those Guardians?"

Sam smiled, "Why didn't you say so? Come this way. Mister Frodo will be pleased to meet you, whatever your name's are."

Nuriko sweat-dropped and face-faulted into the dirt. "I just don't get these little people. They're so defensive about their plants, and they have a strange attitude toward weird teenage boys." He followed Brian who was being lead into Bags End.

The first thing that Brian did after he walked through the door of Bags End was bang his head on the little lamp hanging from the ceiling. The second thing he did was permanently adopt a pose that made him look like a combination of one of those kids of Sesame Street or Barney who were trying to form a seven and a human form of a cat hacking up a hairball. Nuriko walked into the house and just opted for bending over.

The three of them stood outside the study. "Mister Frodo? Mister Frodo, sir? I've got a few people here who want to talk to you."

A hobbit with brown hair and about twenty less pounds came out of the study to look at Nuriko and Brian. "My goodness, what are you? I assume you must be friends for Sam would have never let anyone else in otherwise." He examined the both of them. "You don't look like you're from around here, or anywhere, as a matter of fact."

Both of them looked at their Chinese clothes. Brian smiled and held out his hand, "Pleased to meet you, Frodo Baggins. I was wondering, do you know the whereabouts of Legolas, of the Woodland Elves?" He collapsed on the floor and went into the Indian-style sitting position. Nuriko followed suit.

Frodo looked at Sam. "Now that you mention it, I don't actually know where he is now. The last I saw of him was in Gondor, before we left for the Shire. Sam, do you remember him saying anything about where he would be going?"

"I think he said he was…well, I can't rightfully answer you Mister Frodo. I don't know." The two hobbits looked at the two visitors. Frodo smiled sadly. "I am afraid that we can't help you very much. I would suggest that you try looking in Rivendell or perhaps Gondor."

Nuriko and Brian left. Nuriko sighed exasperatedly. "So, Mr. I know everything. That got us absolutely nowhere. Maybe we better ask someone for the way to Rivendell." Brian held out an arm.

"Wait a minute. I think that I can get some help here." He sat on the ground in a meditative position and began to hum. "Hmmmm….Em…i…..can you here me…..em….i?….hmmm….." Nuriko sweat-dropped again. After a few minutes, Brian stood up, dusted the dirt off his pants and said, "He's traveling towards Lauriell from Rivendell. If we Travel, we can meet up with him."

Brian closed his eyes and Nuriko grabbed his hand, closed his eyes and concentrated on the images that Brian sent to him. Brian mentally spoke to Emily. 'Emi, I need computer power now.' He heard her quiet response, 'I imagine that you require enough energy to Travel to that realm of the forest? Fine.' A few seconds later, there was a white glow around the two of them.

They disappeared just as two tall shadows emerged from the trees. They turned to one another and nodded before nodding and disappearing into the shade of the trees again. The white glow fading from the surroundings and a little while later, Sam came out to prune the plants again.

Brian opened his eyes and saw the rolling gray clouds with the lightening flashes. 'This is getting familiar. Now I remember, this is the in-between worlds. I remember this from school.' He saw the pale white light in the middle of the storm. The clouds slowly stopped moving and the lightening died down. The white light grew in size and soon Nuriko and Brian were engulfed in it.

They emerged in the middle of a forest with sunlight playing on the green leaves. Quickly Brian flung Nuriko behind a tree. Or this would have worked if Nuriko wasn't so strong. The result was Brian hurting his arm and cursing a little.

"Ow! That hurt! What did you do that for?" Brian gritted his teeth and milked it for all it was worth. Which, apparently wasn't very much.

"Well it's your own fault for attempting to throw me around even though your strength is no comparison to mine." Nuriko replied primly. "I'm sorry, but it's the truth. You're just going to end up hurting yourself if you keep doing that."

Brian glared at his partner. "Fine. I challenge you!"

Nuriko gave him a strange look. "Challenge me to what?"

With an evil glint in his eye, Brian replied, "An arm wrestling contest! I am the champion!" He whipped out his arm with his and ready to grip. Nuriko's eye twitched.

"Brian, are you feeling alright? You look a little crazed." Suddenly, an evil laugh emerged from behind the trees. Nuriko and Brian whirled around in defensive positions. Brian looked around, "Who art thou, evil beast?" Nuriko gave him another look and Brian sighed. "Fine. Fine." Clearing his throat, he proclaimed, "Who's out there? Show yourself!"

The two shadows appeared from behind the trees, flanking one other shadow. The third, the tallest stood in the center and spoke, "Brian, we meet again. On different grounds…or should I say, not so different grounds?"

Brian glared and crossed his arms. "Tim, that is not amusing and quite possibly the lousiest excuse for a  ring-wraith wannabe cosplay. Those clichéd lines aren't gaining you any points either." He rolled his eyes. "You might as well take off the cloaks. There's no way that you can fool me now."

The wraiths lowered their hoods and sure enough, were three people: Tim, with two of the authorities. Possibly Numbers 15 and 27. Tim raised his hands in a slightly submissive gesture. "Brian. It's good to see you again. I see you've finally found a way to get over your…injuries."

"Caused by you." Brian spat out. Nuriko looked at the teenager. In his short time with him, Nuriko had never seen Brian anywhere near this livid. He was almost always happy or at least cheerful to some extent. Now, any trace of kindness disappeared from his face. His purple eyes flashed and if he was Tamahome, would probably be standing in some pose that would involve a lot of hairspray, wind and glowing lights.

Tim grinned. "Darwin's theory of natural selection. The strongest survive." He watched with a twisted smile as Brian slowly grew angrier. "You might have won at first, but I won out in the end. Tough luck. Now I'm going to find the stupid guardian so that you can't find the other gems."

"But you won't be able to either, without the other four guardians. Without them, there is no way that you can ever find the other gems." (A/n: Brian doesn't know what Emily does about not actually needing the guardian there to know where and what the gems are. They still need the gems together in order to use them.)

Tim smirked. "It doesn't matter. I won against you before, and I will win again. No matter how hard it takes. At this very moment, Authorities are moving in on that sibling of yours in the Matrix world." He grinned like an evil cat and leaned against a tree as his two cronies moved behind the tree.

It was Brian's turn to smirk. "Some problems there, buddy. But since you're the smarter one, I'll let you figure it out." He turned to Nuriko. "Come on Nuriko. Let's find out where Prince Charming is hiding then we can haul our asses out of here."

The evil cat grin turned into the ugliest look imaginable. "I don't think you're going anywhere, Brian, until you've told me what you mean. And if you don't talk, your sister will suffer deeply."

Brian started laughing and Tim glared at him. "Well, you see, Tim, the problem is that Emi isn't in the Matrix world. She's safe back in the other world, probably watching the computer screen as you and your little stooges there walk around. So there's no way that you could make her suffer. Besides, how would you know if Emi was suffering? She doesn't suffer. Ever. You can't get through to her. She'll make you suffer long before you ever make her suffer. It's plain, pure and simple." He lazily smiled at him, "Or can't you understand that, top of the food chain?"

Tim bristled. "Who are you calling top of the food chain, you little brat? You've just gotten over your paralysis. Let's see how well you fight. There's no way that you're going to get to Legolas before we do." He turned to the two shadows. "Number 15, number 27 ½, proceed to capture Legolas."

They nodded and went off into the forest. Nuriko looked around before fading into the darkness as well. A few seconds later, there were sounds of a scuffle, concluding with Nuriko walking back into the clearing wiping his hands. "Those idiots were hardly worth my time."

"You managed to get rid of Numbers 15 and 27 ½. Congratulations. There was a reason I was given those losers." He grinned. But now this is between me and Brian, and you aren't to interfere, gay boy." Nuriko bristled.

"What did you call me?" He stalked over and grabbed Tim by the collar of his shirt. Tim looked a little surprised. "Can't you at least call me a transvestite? Besides, that gay thing is long over. So you really need to shut up." He proceeded to throw Tim into a tree, but Tim managed to flip in midair so his feet hit the trunk and he grabbed a branch to support himself. He jumped back onto the ground, smirking again.

"You forget that I am Master of this world. I have managed to find ways to break all the rules, such as gravity. There is nothing I can't do."

Brian grinned, "Can you dodge an arrow?" Tim gave him questioning look. "I'd look out if I were you." He slowly turned around and saw the arrow aimed at the back of his head. He couldn't see his attacker's face, it was hidden in the cloak. Brian walked slowly toward Tim. "I think there's a saying from the Matrix world, where someone says 'Dodge this.'"

He leaned over to Tim, to whisper, "This is the part, where you run away." Tim glared at him.

"I will not be beaten in my own territory." He vanished, but a faint impression of his voice could heard saying, "You haven't won yet, Brian. You or your little sister there or that friend of yours." The voice faded into nothing.

Brian turned around to Nuriko. "You okay? What did you do with the two thugs?"

Nuriko shrugged, "I left them where they landed." He looked to the hooded person who had put away their bow and arrow. "Who's this friend of yours? Did you meet him before?"

The hooded figure spoke. "We have not met before. I sensed a great evil about him." He pulled down his hood.

Brian's eyes widened. "Yo! Dude! You must use more Peroxide than Christina Aguilera! Those have got to be the coolest contacts I've ever seen!" He marveled over Legolas's appearance as Nuriko sweat-dropped and Legolas just stared at him without any sign of having heard or understood the words that had just come out of his mouth.

"I am Legolas, of the woodland elves. I am the guardian of the gem of memory for Middle Earth."

Brian held up an imaginary walkie talkie. "Pah-chush! Roger, we have the guardian, over pah-chush!"

Tasuki was still stuck in the stair as Alexis attempted to pull him out. The sounds of the students were coming closer and closer. Tasuki reached back to grab his fan. "I can burn them down with my fire, if you want."

Alexis's eyes grew wide in alarm. "No! You can't hurt them. They're innocent! You can't hurt them under any circumstance! Just keep trying to get out of the stair. Come on, Tasuki! You can do this!" He thought wildly for a moment. "Come on, I'll get you some peaches and it can be Wiggle Wiggle Part 15!"

Tasuki's eye twitched. "It's Wiggle Wiggle part four." Alexis rolled his eyes. With one last little heave, he pulled himself out of the hole. "And who do you take me as, accepting fruit as a bribe?"

"That's exactly what I'm insinuating signor. That you would." He could see the shadows of the students. "We need to get out of here. Quick!" He grabbed Tasuki's hand and flew down the stairs back into the entrance hall, where he shoved the both of them in the closet.

"Why are we in here, Chiriko---Alexis?" Tasuki whispered.

"To hide from the students. As soon as they get to lunch, then we can sneak out and head towards Dumbledore's office. Then we can get back with Dumbledore as the guardian." He waited until the voices of the students in the hallway had faded just a little. Then he slowly pushed the door open, looking both ways before creeping out. Tasuki followed him.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" Alexis froze on the spot, while Tasuki flipped around and aimed his fan at him. "Apparently, we have two senile burglars."

Tasuki glared at him. "I'm not senile! Just who do you think you are, calling me insane! I'm going to blast you with my fan!" Alexis became a mirror image of a fish.

Snape looked the two of them. He raised an eyebrow. "So we have two foreign senile burglars. It will do me no use to command you to follow me, so I must do so with magic." He raised a magic wand. Alexis anticipated this and he held up his hands.

"Um…Professor…Snape? We need to go to Professor Dumbledore immediately. It's a matter of the utmost importance." Alexis nervously twiddled his fingers behind his back. "It's really important. It's so important, I can't tell you what it is without endangering you."

Snape gave them a cold look. "I will decide if it is important enough to desterb the headmaster." He grinned darkly. "Unfortunately, since you and your companion cannot tell me what it is, you cannot pass. The door is that way." He pointed toward the front doors.

Tasuki was lost. "What's he saying Chiriko? I can't understand him. What's he saying?"

Alexis replied back in Chinese. "For the last time, I'm not Chiriko. I'm Alexis. Al-ex-is. Say it with me: A-lex-is! And he's speaking in English, in case you were wondering."

"Oh. So tell him that I'm going to burn him with my fan unless he tells us where it is that we need to go."

"Violence will not be necessary." Alexis, Tasuki and Snape all turned to face Dumbledore who was coming down the stairs. "Are you two from the other world?" He addressed them in Tasuki's language.

Alexis nodded. "You speak Chinese, headmaster Dumbledore?"

The old wizard smile gently. "I learned a many great things in the earlier years of my youth." He switched to English. "Professor Snape, if you would be so kind as to return to your office? I need to speak to you about something later."

"Headmaster, where are you bringing them? They are foreign spies. There is no doubt that they want to cause a lot of mischief."

Dumbledore smiled again, "I have no doubt that you would think so. However, I believe that they are quite safe to come with me to my office. They will be leaving soon and will not be a disturbance to the students. Good day, Professor Snape."

Alexis finished translating for Tasuki just in time for the Suzaku warrior to stick his tongue out at Snape's retreating back as he headed for the dungeons. Alexis gave him a look to which Tasuki replied with a sheepish look of his own.

Dumbledore beckoned to them. "Come. If I am not mistaken, you need to return to your own world as soon as possible, is that not so?" Alexis nodded and followed the old wizard up the stairs, all the way to his office. Tasuki followed, often stopping for periods of time before jogging to keep up.

They stopped beside a stone goblin. Dumbledore murmured, "Skittles." He mistook Alexis's astounded face for one of confusion. "It's a muggle candy that can be found in this world. They're rather interesting. Supposedly, they allow you to 'taste the rainbow.'"

'Funny how some things just keep showing up.' Alexis thought as they got on the moving staircase. Tasuki gripped the sides and muttered things about magic and Chichiri stuff. Finally, they reached the office. Inside was a platform with Fawkes on it. Alexis held out his hand.

"Hello Fawkes. You're prettier here than in the movies." Tasuki looked a little mystified at the whole thing but was actually keeping quiet for once.

Dumbledore sat behind his desk and let Alexis and Tasuki stand before him. "So I understand that you are the people who are here to collect me as a guardian? I do not recognize either of you as the two that I contacted via the dream earlier."

Alexis grinned nervously. "Well you see. The two that you talked to, Emily and Brian, they found out this stuff, so we split up the work to get the guardians together before the Authorities and the Andersons do." He smiled. "I'm sorry that we aren't who you expected, but here we are."

Dumbledore nodded. "I see. Have you learned from the other guardians the little secret that we have? Not all of us know it completely, except for me, apparently." Alexia leaned in, while Tasuki stared at the ceiling, as they were speaking in English.

"You do not need the guardians to be gathered for us to remember where or what the gem is." He pulled out his wand. "Unfortunately, I cannot leave my duties here as headmaster, even if only for a short while. I will place my knowledge of the gem into this dust ball. Don't lose it please. It will be able to tell you where to find the gem and what it looks like when the other guardians are gathered together."

He waved the wand around for a moment and there was some golden light, then there was a little dust ball on the table. (A/n: Have you Spirited Away? Think of the little soot balls that work for Komaji in the boiler room. That kind of a dust ball, they're so cute.) It opened it's eyes and stretched its little legs. Alexis held out his hand and the little creature jumped onto it.

"This will act as a temporary guardian?" Alexis looked at Dumbledore, who nodded.

"Yes. It will provide you with the information as well as a spell to summon the gem so that you do not have to come back here at your own risk. I would suggest you leave soon, or otherwise you may run into unwanted trouble."

Alexis nodded. He put the dust ball on his shoulder. Looking for Tasuki, who had wandered off he called out, "Hey, orange-top! We're leaving! Come on." He grabbed the fighter's hand. Before he shouted 'Kyuusei', he turned to Dumbledore and asked, "Does this little guy have a name?"

The wizard shrugged. "If he does, he will tell you on his own, in his own way. I would not worry about it for now. You may call him…Dusty."

"Dusty?" Alexis looked at the dust ball. "So how do you like your name, Dusty?" The little dust ball jumped up and down on his shoulder. "I take that as a yes. So let's go." Suddenly he stopped and closed his eyes. It was a message from Chiriko. He grinned at Tasuki.

"Tasuki, Chiriko says that Emi and Chichiri have already arrived. So now it's time to go." He closed his eyes again and he forced images of the palace from Tasuki's mind into his own. Then he shouted "Kyuusei!"

There was a flash of white light and a bunch of sparkles. A little piece of paper fell to the floor. Dumbledore went over to pick it up and there were three phrases written on it. One in a child's handwriting, in English, saying, 'Finally, I can go home. I can't stand Tasuki much longer.'

In messy Chinese writing was a phrase along the lines of, "I HATE TRAVELING!! LET ME OFF!!! I WANT TO GO HOME!!!!"

Finally, a little message written in soot was in letters barely big enough to see, "Funfunfunfunfun."

Dumbledore smiled before walking to Snape's office to talk to him. 'Hopefully, that little dust ball will be able to thwart the enemy long enough for those twins and their friends to stop the darkness from coming. Otherwise, we are all in danger.'

Emily watched the computer console intently. There had just been a figure that Find-a-lot identified as "3vil". She sighed. 'Brian needs to reformat his machine so that it is not impossible for me to decipher who the actual persons represented are.' Looking at the little figure, she ran a search on the stats. It was not promising.

'Tim, the master of the Middle Earth world. Brian needs to remove himself immediately.' She was about to send a mental warning to him, when the figure suddenly disappeared, and the other two figures that had been labeled, 'DM8455'. Then she received a mental image from Brian.

It was Legolas, the elf, the guardian of the gem for Middle Earth. 'I assume this means that he has been successful in his mission to contact the guardian. All that remains if for him to return with the elf.' Just at that moment, there was a burst of silver sparkles and Alexis rolled out onto the floor.

Tasuki followed a moment thereafter, squashing the poor nine-year old into the royal carpet. Emily strode over quickly and flipped Tasuki out of the way. She lifted Alexis up to inspect him. "You are not severally maimed?"

Alexis grinned and shook his head. The dust ball peeked around from behind his neck. Emily stared at it. "Emi, this is Dusty. He's got all Dumbledore's memories and stuff. He couldn't leave so he gave him to us instead." Emily stared in disgust at the little dust ball.

"Fine. If that is the case, then it must be so." She put Alexis down and returned to the computer. It was beginning to glow with the white light. Then, Nuriko, Brian and Legolas materialized surrounded in a white light. When the light was faded, the three stood there.

Brian ran over to Emily. "Emi! They know about us! We met Tim in the forest and if it wasn't for pretty boy 1, then I would have been dead. How are we supposed to figure out to get to the other guardians if we're stalked at every level?" Without stopping to catch a breath, he looked around and continued, "How come there is only one guardian? Shouldn't there be three--?" Emily raised an eyebrow and glared.

"You incompetent fool. There are three guardians present. If your observations skills were perhaps a little more developed, then it would not be necessary for you to require the answers to such petty questions. The first guardian replacement is with the idiot bandit. The second guardian replacement is with Alexis."

"Guardian, replacement?" Brian asked curiously. "What do you mean replacement? We need the guardians in order to find out where and what the gems are!"

"Nope! We just need all the memories and stuff present and then we get the gems. I'm not sure how it works out, but that's the way it is!" Alexis grinned. "This is Dusty. He's the Wizarding world guardian thingy."

"This is the Death of Rats, ya know? He's apparently subbing in for the real death ya know." Brian walked over to the death of rats.

"Are you serious? We have a rat, a dust ball and the biggest pretty boy for the guardians? What's going to be next? Some cyber monster snot from Dantooine? A pair of sunglasses from the Matrix? This is stupid."

"Excuse me." Everyone turned to look at the emperor. Everyone except Emily who was glaring at Brian who was sitting muttering about something and Alexis who was showing the dust ball to Chiriko. "I believe what you said it incorrect."

Brian rounded on him, "Yeah? What part of it? The are you serious part? Or the we need the guardians in order to find out where and what the gems are?"

"That part that addresses that he is the "biggest pretty boy" because it is impossible for him to be so."

Brian rolled his eyes, "Well, your highness, if you just look at him, he's hair to rival the ditiziest of Hollywood's blondes and eyes so blue that Hitler would like the guy instantly. How can he not be the biggest pretty boy? He's prettier than Nuriko over there."

Legolas was passively watching this exchange the entire time. Nuriko rolled up his sleeves and started cracking his knuckles. "Oh yeah? Just who do you think you are? You're not that good looking!"

Hotohori stuck a dramatic pose before saying, "He cannot, for I am the most beautiful present. It is impossible that his looks could exceed mine."

"Sorry to break it to you, but he's prettier." Brian smugly crossed his arms and turned away from him.

"But I am the beautiful one!" Hotohori protested.

"No, I'm the pretty one!" Nuriko added in his five cents (or whatever the currency was in ancient china).

"Well I'm the prettiest one of all!" Everyone, indeed everyone this time, looked at Mitsukake with looks of horror on their faces, except for Emily, Legolas and the Death of Rats, who were the poker face champions. He looked at them and coughed slightly. "I am sorry. I have always wanted to say that." Everyone turned around and continued where they left off.

Emily stood up and handed the IndividiCom over to Brian. "Here. We need to proceed with more caution and create a plan with a failsafe included, for in the event that we encounter an Authority or Master of that world. The Matrix and Galactic worlds are the most difficult to blend into."

Her twin nodded. "Roger that. So we need to think about this for a bit. Come on, let's grab something to eat." The two of them left the room, discussing the different types of defense that they could use to protect themselves.

"Come on Chiriko! I want to see if Dusty can write!" Alexis was playing the part of the overjoyed little brother who was just granted a puppy who could play dead and wanted to show it off to his older teen brother.

"Fine." He got up and Tasuki stopped him. "Hey, you're the real Chiriko, right?" Chiriko gave him a weird look and followed his younger brother. Hotohori and Nuriko were glaring at Legolas, as if he was a threat. The poor elf had no inclination as to what was going on because elvish is in no way, similar to Chinese.

Koji was looking at the Death of Rats who had moved over to Chichiri's shoulder. The rat was merely observing, now that he had completed his long speech in the opening of the scene. Then he turned to Tasuki. "Hey, Genro. I gotta go. Da guys are probly wonderin' where I am. Do ya wanna come back to Reikaku wit' us?"

"Um…I hate to say this, but you can't leave yet, ya know." Chichiri had a troubled look on his face as he spoke to Koji.

"What'ja mean, I can't leave? I gotta leave." Koji stared the magician.

"Well, I cast that spell on you and Emily, ya know. So when I tried to take the spell off, most of it broke, but some of it's still there, ya know. You can't go too far or otherwise you'll both face hard consequences." Chichiri announced, while Koji stood there with a look of stupor on his face.

Tasuki found this amusing. "Hahahaha! You can't go anywhere because of that girl? The one that doesn't talk? You have to stay here until the spell wears off? That's funny!" Koji's eye twitched and then he sighed.

"Well, Genro, will ya take care of da gang while I'm here? Just like the old times, huh?" He grinned sloppily at Tasuki. "If ya gonna leave, put Dai in charge." Tasuki nodded, recovering from his fit of laughter.

"No problem Koji. Anything for a pal of mine." He held out a hand and Koji looked like he was going to shake it, but at the last moment, linked arms with him and they started to do their little dance. After a few seconds, Tasuki stopped and grinned.

"You take care of yourself, Koji." He leaned in and whispered, "And if you can get the girl, go for!" He grinned, showing off his fangs before leaving. Mitsukake went up to the final three Suzaku warriors and said, "I must return home. Shoka, her family and that village need me. I apologize for not being able to stay here, your majesty."

Hotohori smiled regally. "It is alright Mitsukake. Please stay in good health and give your village my blessing when you return." Mitsukake bowed and then left the room, leaving Nuriko, Chichiri and Hotohori with what had been mentally christened by two of them as "The Evil One with Semi-good looks". Chichiri nodded and bowed. "Well, I better go talk to Emily and Brian, to find out what they're doing about the other two guardians. You'd better come too, your majesty, ya know?"

Nuriko rolled his eyes. "Well, I'll come along too. Leave rat-boy here with him." Chichiri handed over the Death of Rats to Legolas, who merely stared at it until it ran up his arm and settled on his shoulder. The three left in pursuit of the twins.

Legolas looked at Koji and Koji looked at Legolas. Then Koji quickly backed out of the room, leaving the Blond on with the small rodent. Legolas looked at the Death of Rats. The Death of Rats looked at Legolas. It said, SQUEAK and jumped off his shoulder and ran out of the room.

Legolas stood observing his surroundings. All of a sudden, there were five small females with blue-green hair in buns and pigtails that came around the corner, floating in the middle of the air. The first one stopped and the others crashed into her.

"Nyan – nyan!" She did the peace sign to Legolas who just looked back. Then she turned to the other Nyan – Nyans and held a conference. A few seconds later they all turned with wide eyes and said, "Legolas! Come with us Legolas!"

Legolas felt a growing sense of discomfort and immediately started backing away. As four of the Nyan – Nyans raced toward him, all shouting endearments in voices in such high registers that it would shatter some form of a solid. Legolas dealt with this on coming threat in the same way that other male teen idols did when confronted with teen worshippers: run the other way as fast as possible.

The other Nyan-nyans followed after in the air, trying to keep up with the swift elf. The first Nyan-nyan grinned. "Yay! At last I got rid of them! She smiled and giggled, did the peace sign, flipped over and disappeared with a pop! Leaving Legolas at the mercy of the other teen Nyan-nyans.

Part Four Complete. Tune in Next Time for Part Five: I haven't come up with a name for it yet.

A/n: How was it? Part five will allow them to collect the rest of the guardians and get some of the mess semi-sorted out. Let me know what you think. I'm sorry I couldn't update sooner, keep the wonderful reviews coming! Flames, of course are welcome, but that's why I have my: "Flame Extinguisher!" Bwhahahahahaha! But besides that. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear what you think should happen. I might not be able to incorporate it into the story, but I'll try to make all the readers happy.

This is a public service announcement: If you are reading this fic. This means you. Yes you. The one sitting staring at these very words. You should be reviewing this story. It is in your best interest to be reviewing this story because otherwise, I won't update. Ever. I'm serious. So there. Review, please? puppy dog face


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